PEOPLE are being encouraged to help shape Worcestershire's plan for minerals development in the future.

Worcestershire County Council is asking landowners, agents and minerals operators to suggest sites for possible new mineral workings for inclusion in the next stage of the minerals local plan.

The council also wants to know if there are mineral resources it is not aware of and what kind of essential infrastructure should be safeguarded in the plan to support mineral working.

Councillor Simon Geraghty, deputy leader and cabinet member for economy, skills and infrastructure, said: "Worcestershire, like every other area of the country, needs to provide amounts of vital minerals such as sand, gravel, building stone and clay.

"This is an important opportunity to ensure that future mineral workings are permitted in the right places and that our background evidence is correct.

"Just as importantly this plan will not only be used to determine planning applications, it will also include guidelines to ensure that once worked, sites are restored to provide social, environmental and economic benefits for the community.

"We hope that this will mean restored sites will be valued by future generations."

People can submit their views until Friday, September 25, at worcestershire.gov.uk/minerals or at any of the county council`s libraries.

In Worcestershire there are minerals including sand and gravel, some types of rock, building stone, brick clay, silica sand, coal and salt.

There is no evidence however that the county has minerals suitable for fracking or any other deposits of oil or gas, and no licences have been granted under the government's current system to explore for any of these in Worcestershire.

The new minerals local plan will guide how much and what minerals are required, where they should be extracted, how sites should be restored when working has finished and how minerals development should protect and enhance Worcestershire's people and places.

It will replace the former document which was adopted in 1997 and it will be used to make decisions about planning applications for mineral extraction, processing and restoration in the county.