RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 325 



dustries. This has led to the creation of greenbelts in and around 

 our cities and the cessation of ribbon development, which is the 

 extension of industrial and domestic building along the frontages of 

 the main roads from our towns. In particular, planning control has 

 helped to minimize the effects of dumping and excavation which 

 have in the past been major causes of dereliction in the United 

 Kingdom and it is dereliction that I would particularly like to talk 

 about today. 



In 1963, His Royal Highness, the Duke of Edinburgh, called a 

 conference representative of organizations in Great Britain vitally 

 concerned with land preservation and conservation to discuss the 

 theme: "The Countryside in 1970." At this conference I repre- 

 sented the National Goal Board and I presented two papers outlining 

 the land restoration work which followed open-cast or strip mining 

 of coal. A number of recommendations were made and progress 

 with these is to be considered at a further conference to be held in 

 October this year. It is therefore with considerable interest that I 

 attend this White House conference. 



It seems to me that if conservation is to be effective, the first essen- 

 tial is general acceptance of the fact that in these days of rapid 

 change, the control of land use, and particularly of dereliction, is 

 equally as important as many of the other forms of control to which 

 we are all subject. If this is accepted there appear to be two main 

 tasks: (1) to obtain a suitable measure of control over what we 

 do in the future and (2) to clean up the legacy of the past. 



As to what is a suitable measure of control, the needs may vary 

 in our two countries because of the difference in scale which I men- 

 tioned earlier. In the United Kingdom, for instance, with a popula- 

 tion of 53 million, we have 70,000 square miles only of agricultural 

 land. It is certain, too, that between now and the year 2000 the 

 quantity of land in use for industry, housing, services and so on will 

 increase considerably. The pressure on our land is therefore much 

 greater than it is in the U.S.A. For this reason we probably require 

 a somewhat greater degree of control than may be necessary here. 



In Great Britain the mining industry has been responsible for more 

 land desecration than any other industry and the National Goal 

 Board has been faced with the problem of derelict land in all coal- 

 fields in the country. Deep mining of coal leaves its scars of waste 

 dumps and subsidence damage to land and property. Strip mining 

 of coal causes loss of amenity whilst the operation is in progress but 

 leaves no permanent scars. However, coal represents only about 4 



