THE railfreight project was defeated by a solitary paragraph in an obscure planning document governing an area many miles from St Albans.

Many of the arguments marshalled against the scheme by campaigners were rapidly dismissed by both inspector Andy Mead and Secretary of State Eric Pickles.

Mr Mead's report is quite scathing about some of the witnesses against the scheme, accusing them of wildly misunderstanding Helioslough's proposals for lorry routes and exaggerating the existing traffic on the A414.

He and Mr Pickles agreed the goods depot would not merge settlements, and the proposed improvements such as a Park Street relief road would prevent major traffic problems.

Concerns that the workforce would drive from outside the area were also dismissed, along with campaigners' arguments about noise, air quality and light pollution.

Barristers representing the council and Strife tried hard to prove the depot was impractical, but their elaborate arguments about timetables, train pathways and tunnel gauges made little impression on Mr Mead, who had no doubt the depot could operate as planned.

He ruled the visual impact would be merely "moderately adverse", but said the inspector who heard the first enquiry should have given more weight to wildlife harm.

The enquiry spent many tortuous hours debating whether Helioslough had been right to consider only the north-west sector of the M25 in its alternative sites assessment.

The council argued that the whole of the Home Counties should be considered, but Mr Mead, in almost a fatal blow to Strife, described the company's approach as reasonable.

Mr Mead and Mr Pickles also agreed with Helioslough that two rival sites north of Luton, and one near Maidenhead, were not suitable, but the company's case fell apart when Colnbrook near Slough was considered in detail.

Mr Mead concluded it was not suitable, as it provids a "strategic gap" between Slough and London, and an earlier railfreight project had been defeated in a similar enquiry in 2002.

But Mr Pickles drew attention to the Slough Core Strategy 2006 to 2026, adopted in December 2008.

The key passage of the decision letter reads: "He observes that paragraph 2.29 of the Slough Core Strategy specifically mentions a proposal for an SRFI (strategic rail freight interchange) in the strategic gap.

"Read in conjunction with this paragraph, the Secretary of State considers that Slough Core Strategy Policy 2 does not necessarily bar inappropriate Green Belt development such as an SRFI in the strategic gap.

"Whilst no application has yet been made at Colnbrook, the Secretary of State has taken into account the documentation presented to the Radlett inquiry about an emerging SRFI proposal at Colnbrook .

"This indicates that a substantially smaller scale of rail-connected warehousing is envisaged at Colnbrook compared with the appeal proposal.

"If an application were to be made for a SRFI at Colnbrook of about the size indicated in evidence to the Radlett inquiry, then harm to the Green Belt might, subject to testing in an alternative sites assessment, be found to be significantly less than the harm caused by the Radlett proposal."

Helioslough's only remaining hope, and its opponents only fear, is that it can convince the High Court that Mr Pickles was not entitled to make this decision.