A missing petition which campaigners claimed was lost after it was handed in to Herefordshire Council has brought about a High court review of a controversial polytunnel planning application.

Scores of villagers in Kings Caple, signed a petition but London's High Court was told this was not included in a report to Herefordshire District Council's planning committee.

And plans to install 25 hectares of polytunnels at Pennoxstone Court were given the green light in May last year.

Their decision could now be overturned after a senior judge ruled the failure to show councillors the petition may void the planning permission.

The court heard farmer, Neil Cockburn, applied to rotate 25 hectares of polytunnels, and 37 hectares of their metal frames, around more than 70 hectares of his Pennoxstone Court Farm, so he can grow soft fruit.

After considering the strict controls placed on the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, a council planning officer advised councillors to refuse planning permission.

Despite that advice, the council's planning committee passed the plans by nine votes to eight on May 25, last year.

Judge Allan Gore QC ruled that, in such a finely balanced vote, the failure to include the petition in the report should be further investigated.

Opening the way for Mrs Keogh to mount a full judicial review challenge, he said: "It is arguable that the omission to deal with this matter in the report and place it before decision makers at the meeting was a procedural failure of such substance as to undermine the validity of the decision."

No date was set for the full hearing of Mrs Keogh's challenge.