NEW Transport and environment Secretary Stephen Byers will be the man with the final say on Hampshire's most controversial planning application.

The Labour minister holds the key to whether the huge Dibden Bay container terminal development goes ahead on Southampton Water.

A public inquiry into the application by Southampton Docks operator Associated British Ports will begin on October 30 at the Esso Fawley Recreation Club at Holbury, as previously reported in the Daily Echo.

The original application was submitted to the Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions.

But after a government reorganisation following the general election, the scheme is set to come under the auspices of the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (DTLR) and Mr Byers, 49, the MP for North Tyneside, is the Secretary of State.

A spokesman at the Central Office of Information said that Michael Hurley, the inspector conducting the inquiry, will make a report which will go to the Department. Mr Hurley will be assisted by a deputy, Andrew Phillipson, and an assistant, Chris Gossop. "The department will look at the report and if it is approved, the final seal will come from the Secretary of State," he said.

The inquiry is expected to last for about a year and will run in four-week sessions, with one-week breaks in between.

Meanwhile, the environmental group Friends of the Earth has warned that proposed new legislation will erode the value of public inquiries and the importance of comments by local people.

It fears some of the inspectors' powers will be transferred to government ministers.

But a Central Office for Information spokesman said the idea of the changes was to improve the process of scrutinising projects of national significance such as Dibden Bay.