ABSTRACT
In 1974, the Duke of Edinburgh provided the introduction to a study of quarries and the landscape for the minerals industry (cf. Haywood, 1974). In this he suggested that there was no better illustration of the dilemma between conservation and the demands of an industrial urban society than the situation of the extractive industries. He commented that we needed the resources but we were naturally anxious about the damage done in their extraction. These issues, the environmental and economic aspects of mineral extraction, have remained on the agenda for many years, and problems and concerns remain today. The town planner is faced with these problems in many aspects of work; mineral planning is however different from other aspects of planning, and many of the differences stem from the inherent characteristics of minerals.
