dumping waste in a sensitive nature reserve.

Last month the Trust wrote a letter angrily objecting to dumping horticultural waste along one edge of Pembroke Marsh.

It said the move was environmental negligence and highlighted a conflict of interest between the Parks and Works and Engineering departments -- which are now under one roof.

Yesterday the Trust's environment chairman, Tim Marshall, said Government had contacted him by telephone to arrange a meeting.

"From our perspective we are very pleased at Government's decision to talk to us to see if we can find a solution,'' he said. "We are hoping Government will decide to put the Marsh back to the way it was. That is what we are pushing for.'' Works Minister Leonard Gibbons said it was necessary to fill in a strip of marshland to use as a base to help shore up Marsh Folly Road, which is subsiding.

But the Trust wrote to Premier David Saul saying horticultural waste would subside and was totally unsuitable as it rots and would pollute the Marsh.

It also said the dumping would never have happened if the Parks Department had not been moved from the Environment Ministry to Works and Engineering.

"We are concerned that the Minister of Works has an insurmountable conflict of interest and is only concerned with justifying the problem rather than rectifying the damage,'' the Trust wrote in its letter to the Premier.