Calls to protect the countryside from quarrying were made at a conference in York today.

The Royal Town Planning Institute hosted the seminar, Minerals Planning - Is The System Fit For Purpose, at the Bar Convent.

Michelle Coombs, minerals campaigner with the Council for the Protection of Rural England, was among the speakers.

She said: "The Labour Government entered office with a clear and welcome commitment to protect the countryside from quarrying."This now needs to be translated into new policies which reduce the emphasis on meeting forecast demand and reflect recent changes in transport and house-building policy."

Ms Coombs stated: "Huge amounts of sand, gravel and rock are quarried in England today, affecting an area almost three times the size of the Isle of Wight.

"In the Yorkshire and Humber region alone, 16 million tonnes of crushed rock are quarried each year."

Ms Coombs added: "Quarrying can cause permanent damage to the countryside, destroying the character and distinctiveness of landscapes which have evolved over centuries.

"The current demand-led approach to quarrying undermines efforts to recycle and use minerals more efficiently, and to promote the role of alternative materials rather than digging up the countryside."

She concluded: "Recent outcries about quarries, such as at Spaunton in the North York Moors National Park, demonstrate that the public are increasingly unhappy about the environmental damage caused by quarrying.

"We hope that the forthcoming review of minerals policy will allow long-awaited improvements to the system to be realised."

Plans by RMC Roadstone Ltd to extend Spaunton quarry, near Kirkbymoorside, were the subject of a three-week-long public inquiry last June.

Environment Secretary John Prescott is expected to decide shortly whether to give the scheme the go-ahead.

l Last month the Evening Press reported that the York Handmade Brick Company was seeking planning permission to extract clay from a new 10-acre quarry to the south of its factory at Alne, near Easingwold.

The company, which makes bricks and tiles, expects to extract about 500,000 tonnes of clay over a period of 25 years, digging to a depth of 10 metres.

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