ENVIRONMENTALISTS are celebrating Secretary of State Stephen Byers's decision to agree with public inquiry Inspector J M Turner and turn down plans for Xanadu and the Kenyon Junction Station.

The inquiry that took 12 weeks, spread over a year, saw a collection of highly skilled and specialist witnesses and legal representatives for both the local authority and the developers, pit themselves against in the main an unskilled collection of local residents, backed by just two specialist witnesses.

Campaign for Planning Sanity chairman and primary representative of the local communities' case to the inquiry, Chris Maile, is revelling in victory.

He said: "This is the best news we could possibly have had, it is not so much the victory, which is sweet enough, but the decisive nature of that win, on every major point the inspector and subsequently the Secretary of State has found for the local community. All that is left to now is to party, and I am sure that many in Pennington will be doing that tonight."

Mr Maile continued: "I would though like to express the thanks of the campaign to the large number of people that supported us throughout the inquiry, in particular the Green Party, who provided three of the local communities witnesses, including the renowned transport expert Professor John Whitelegg, and ecologist Vanessa Hall."