‘I don’t know why we bothered!’

It was a story that lifted the spirits of the town, and one that brought widespread and well-deserved praise to a section of Welshpool’s youngsters.

But a week on, the man that led the community litter pick carried out by the town’s young boxers is asking: “was it all worth it?”.

Warren Sinden is not a man to upset, but the champion boxer who now runs coaching classes for aspiring kings of the ring was fuming this morning.

Speaking after retracing his team’s footsteps last week that left the canal area spotless, Warren, known as ‘BigRig’ during his boxing days, said some people needed to take a long hard look at themselves.

“Some people are simply idiots and a total drain on our community!” he fumed, after seeing the mess one week on, including vandalism to this bin (pictured).

“Last Sunday evening after our litter pick, I re-walked our route and genuinely couldn’t see a single piece of litter. I was so impressed. But one week on, it honestly needs doing again already.

“They gave it a real good effort on Sunday and to have it thrown back in their faces like that is pathetic. We’re in the middle of organising our next one, but it makes you feel like what’s the point? There’s no excuse. There’s two bins within 100m of each other.

“What sort of message does this send out to the hard work of the kids?”

Last week, Warren oversaw a team of youngsters from his LilRigs boxing class and the Welshpool Boxing Club who spent several hours tidying up the canal area. They even fished a supermarket trolley from the water and returned it to Tesco.

But after seeing the mess just seven days later, Warren had a sharp message for those responsible.

“If you drop litter, you’re honestly just a lazy waste of space. Yes, I know there’s bigger crimes and troubles to this world but, I mean, come on? Disrespectful!”