A High Court test case involving two Castle Point firms has thrown planning law into chaos.

Car salvage firm Holding and Barnes Plc and developers Premier Leisure are now set to take their pioneering legal case to appeal after claiming that Environment Secretary John Prescott had no right to call in their planning inquiries.

They claim it breached their rights to a fair and public hearing under the new Human Rights Act.

The ruling in the High Court stated that Environment Secretary John Prescott did not act unlawfully in calling in the applications but that his actions were "incompatible" with the new Human Rights Act.

Now lawyers, planning experts and council bosses are studying the conclusions to see what, if any, changes need to be made in the consideration of planning applications in the future.

Castle Point Council's planning committee chairman Dennis Williams believed it may mean an end to "call-ins" by the Environment Secretary.

He said: "There is still much more we need to find out but my first reaction is just that - he won't be able to call in applications any more.

"However everything seems to be up in the air at the moment. We can only guess at some things but it raises big questions about how we deal with contentious applications in the future."

Richard Mabb, partner in planning consultants Andrew Martin Associates of Chelmsford, said: "The problem is there is not sufficient case law to give a clear steer to this issue which is why everyone is so paranoid about it.

"It's an extremely complex issue and a grey area which the lawyers must carefully consider."

Both firms are set to take their case to appeal at either the House of Lords or the Court of Appeal. A decision on which court hears it will be made by the High Court on Wednesday.

Car salvage firm HBC, which wants to move from Canvey's Charfleets industrial estate to Haven Road, and Premier Leisure, which wants to build a multi-million pound leisure centre on Rayleigh Road in Thundersley with Virgin Active, launched their legal action in September.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.