A GROUP of community conscious youngsters braved the wind and rain to collect bags of rubbish from Furzeham Green in Brixham.

Police Community Support Officer Lisa Veitch led the task in a bid to spruce up the park which boasts a new £43,000 state-of-the-art playground.

Despite the miserable weather, Katie Miller, 5, Leah Parish, 6, Lyssa Parish, 8, Sam Harris and Jack Downing, both 13, lent a litter-picking hand, clearing the park of dozens of sweet and crisp wrappers. They collected four bags of litter.

PCSO Veitch said: "We managed to clear pretty much most of it and I really appreciate the children and the parents who came along going out in such awful weather.

"We wanted to do it to say a massive thank you to the Friends of Furzeham Green for all the hard work and time and effort they put into getting the grant to build the new play park.

"It's great to see people taking ownership of their local area and wanting to help out to keep the place nice and clean.

"We feel the new play park will help see a reduction in anti-social behaviour and that should something untoward happen in the park that local people will speak up and tell us about it."

PCSO Veitch also thanked Subway for supplying each helper with a sub roll and Tesco for donating the bin bags and refreshments.

As a reward, she gave each youngster a set of top row Cop Cards and will be putting their names forward for a Motiv8 award.