Boy, 7, on mission to clean up the streets near his Horsham village home
Little James Bravery is on a mission – to clean up the streets around his village home near Horsham.
Seven-year-old James regularly tours the footpaths in Broadbridge Heath picking up litter. And his efforts have won admiration from local residents. Many have taken to social media voicing their appreciation. Sue Vernon praised his ‘amazing work’ adding: ‘He deserves an accolade.’
But it’s not just a one-boy-clear-up-campaign – James is, in fact, helped in his rubbish-clearance work by his brother Josh, 14, mum Emma and dad Tom, who run a business called Southwater Pet Services.
Emma said: "We don’t earn a huge amount, so making donations to local fundraising etc isn’t really an option for us at the moment, so we thought we’d give something back to our local community by litter picking under the ‘Adopt A Street Scheme’ run by Horsham District Council.”
They started three years ago but soon wanted to do even more. “We wanted more than one street so we asked if we could cover the entire estate that we live on called Solomon’s Seal. The boys love doing it.”
However, following a recent litter-clearance outing, James – a pupil at Shelley Primary School – ended up asking his mum: ‘Why is there so much dog poo everywhere? Why don’t people put their rubbish in the bin?’
“James knows that in my daily job I pick up around 40 bags of poop because I’m a dog walker, so he doesn’t understand why someone can’t clear up one bag after their own dog,” said Emma.
“I can understand his frustration. It’s just pure laziness.”