ENVIRONMENTALISTS claimed a major victory today in a court battle to stop off-road vehicles using Hampshire footpaths and bridleways.

The challenge was triggered by successful applications made by the Trail Riders' Fellowship for two paths on Twyford Down in Hampshire to be recorded as byways open to all traffic.

Winchester College and a neighbouring landowner, Humphrey Feeds Ltd, failed in the High Court to reverse a Hampshire County Council decision to upgrade the rights of way.

But today three judges at the Court of Appeal reversed the decision in a ruling which campaigners say will safeguard tracks across the country.

In this test case, the county council had decided that applications involving two rights of way did qualify as exceptions under a 2006 law designed to halt the rapid spread of off-road activities into green lanes.

But Lord Justice Dyson, giving the ruling of the Court of Appeal, said that under the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act neither application for upgrades qualified.

Twyford Down was the scene of one of the biggest road building protests in 1991 and 1992 when campaigners set up camps to try to stop the building of the M3 across the land.