A last-ditch legal challenge has stopped the Environment Agency from taking control of the River Wye.

Due to assume authority this week, the Agency now has to wait while a High Court judge examines the latest case against.

That could add another six weeks to a long-running row over who runs the river, a issue given new perspective by plans to bring a canal basin back to Hereford.

On the eve of the take-over, the Environment Agency, sure it had got its way, sent a statement to the Evening News' sister paper, The Hereford Times outlining the Wye's future under new management. Minutes later a further fax said that statement had been withdrawn due to "unforeseen circumstances".

What the Environment Agency hadn't expected was 700 pages of legal argument landing at HM Treasury right on deadline.

The Company of proprietors of the Rivers Wye and Lugg Navigation and Horse Towing-Path put it there in person.

This revived body, dating from the 1800s, contests the Environment Agency's authority over navigation along the Wye to make a claim of its own.

A four-year wait for the findings of a public inquiry into the dispute ended last month. Government favoured the Environment Agency over any local control, the credibility of the opposition badly dented by an Inspector's criticisms of their case and its conduct.

In papers put to the Treasury, the company of Proprietors cites specific criticisms as evidence of bias. Also questioned is the basis of the inquiry's findings and statistics used to support them.

The company sees its case for judicial review reinforced by restoration of Hereford's old canal, which brings British Waterways into the argument as an alternative navigation authority.

If frustrated at the delay, the Environment Agency is prepared to play a waiting game, acknowledging a "very late" challenge to the Wye Navigation Order and work being done to validate it.

Herefordshire Council, meanwhile, is on a paper trail of its own, trying to find what written authorisation the former Hereford City Council had to spend a five-figure sum opposing any outside control of the Wye-documentation that could decide who covers costs arising out the inquiry.