asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what steps he is taking to protect the countryside from excessive exploitation and disfigurement as a result of winning gravel and hoggin.

Sand and gravel, including hoggin, is an essential raw material for the construction industries. But working is subject to planning control and is regulated by permissions to which conditions are attached for the restoration or landscaping of the site. Advice to local planing authorities is given by my Department, and I intend to discuss with them, and with the industrial interests, the possibility of converting more wet workings into recreational lagoons, and in other ways ensuring that some amenity value is extracted from this inevitable disfigurement of the countryside.