§ Mr. Andrew F. Bennettasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on Circular 47/72 concerned with the use of waste material for road fill and joint tendering procedures; how many times that procedure has been used by his Department or by local authorities; how many times joint tenders have been accepted; and what 754W monetary assessment of environmental benefit have resulted.
§ Mr. HoramI have been asked to reply.
The possibility of using a nominated source of waste material is now considered as part of the Department's normal procedure in preparing trunk road schemes. I regret that information about the number of schemes involved is not readily available.
Tenders higher than the lowest tender have been accepted for trunk road schemes on two occasions in order to use a total of 1.2 million tons of colliery waste. The additional cost of £64,000 was accepted because of the environmental benefits gained. I have no information about local authority road schemes.