The battle to halt the march of pylons across the Vale of York took a sensational new twist today with revelations that could delay the plans by up to a year.

Officials from Hambleton District Council say they have discovered a "gap" in the planning consent for a short stretch of line to the north of Middleton-on-Leven, near Stokesley.

They believe the resulting legal wrangle could delay the 50-mile scheme by up to 12 months.

The news was greeted with delight today by protesters demonstrating against the pylons plan outside an inquiry into landowners' opposition to building the line on their property.

But the team behind the project said they did not think the "gap" would delay the project.

The council has alerted the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Stephen Byers, about the "gap".

Its head of legal services, Martyn Richards, said he understood the National Grid, who want to build the 400,000 volt line from Teesside to the edge of York, had applied to the High Court for a judicial review to force Mr Byers to issue the necessary consent.

In his experience it could take up to 12 months to get a judicial review to court.

A spokesman for anti-pylons pressure group REVOLT, Peter Johnson, speaking at a demonstration in Northallerton, was delighted at the news.

A spokesman for the National Grid said the gap amounted to 680 metres. The company believed it was clearly the intention last year to grant permission for the complete route and had sought the judicial review.

He added consent existed for the rest of the line, and surveying and other work on it could continue. Whether the actual construction of the line would be affected depended on the review process, but the situation did not mean any delay to the project.

"The project team's view is that this doesn't represent a threat to the completion of the project," he said.

Members of REVOLT today turned out at the start of hearings in Northallerton, where landowners were preventing the National Grid getting access to their property.

Mr Johnson said the hearings gave the group an opportunity to show there was still a lot of local support for their case, but he was gloomy about the likely recommendation from the Government-appointed inspector, David Dalby-Jones, to Mr Byers.

"It is expected that his recommendation will support the financial interests of the National Grid monopoly and that the whole process will continue to be the sham which has been experienced over the past seven years."

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