Dealing with & in URL parameters

Dealing with & in URL parameters

I am dynamically creating URLs to display filtered views of tables based on some table values.

When those table values are strings that contain the & character, the search does not work because the & is taken to be a parameter separator.

e.g. 

/view-perma/Contacts_List?Org_Site=B&M%20Services

doesn't find any results.

But if i replace & with it's ascii value, and use

/view-perma/Contacts_List?Org_Site=B%26M%20Waste%20Services-Cheshire

that works fine.

Now, I COULD write some code to do that replacement myself, but

1) Is there some other work-around?

2) Why doesn't Zoho replace & by %26, just like it replaces space by %20?

Alex