Schoolboy entrepreneur wins fight to keep 'manure' sign

Schoolboy Steve Sayer thought his entrepreneurial efforts would be rewarded when he bought a sign to advertise his father’s horse manure to gardeners.

The council had other ideas. Ruling that it was illegally placed and distracting to motorists, they said the sign must go.

But the 14-year-old, who had spent £100 on the sign which read ‘Steve’s horse manure with wiggly worms’, refused to give in.



He took it off the verge outside his father’s livery yard — and collected 1,200 signatures in Cheddar, Somerset, to support his enterprise.

Yesterday, Steve, who has been sweeping up and selling the manure since he was 11, was rewarded with victory after a ten-month battle when Sedgemoor District Council overturned its decision.

His father Julian, 43, described the ruling as a 'victory for common sense'. Julian, 43, said: 'It was a crazy decision in the first place, which sought to stifle young entrepreneurship with rigid application of rules.'