Bega Valley Shire Council (BVSC) was listed as the first respondent in the case, and SEFE the second respondent.

The case was a result of local conservation group South East Forest Rescue (SEFR) issuing a court summons to BVSC and SEFE on August 15, seeking to halt the pellet plant, and a “snowballing of logging” the group said would result.

Peter Tegart, general manager of BVSC, said the judgement - a 68 page document - was still being looked at by the council’s legal team.

“We’re looking at it now and the findings will be reported to the council, any decisions will be made from there,” Mr Tegart said on Tuesday.

“The process from here depends on what the applicant (SEFE) wants to do, but I can’t give any comment on when that might be.

“There’s some matters still to be resolved, for instance the parties have to meet and sort out costs, before we can decide where we’ll go with this.”

While anti-loggers are celebrating the victory, SEFE general manager Peter Mitchell described the decision as just a “bureaucratic setback”. He said he was still confident the plant would go ahead.

“The (presiding) judge made it clear that the issue in this case was with the procedural correctness of the development application, not the merit of SEFE’s proposal,” he said.

“Everything we did (was) with the best intentions and with an approved development application in our hand.”

But Lisa Stone from SEFR does not believe the application will be approved after redetermination by the council.

“I believe if SEFE resubmits an honest application and council researches and properly processes that application, it will fall over,” Ms Stone said.

The plant, purchased some months ago from China, has already been erected on the chipmill’s site and staff have been employed especially to operate it.

Mr Mitchell said the plant itself would create between two and four jobs.

“While SEFE will more than likely lose out economically, it’s all a bigger picture: we’re testing the viability of a bigger plant and getting some in-house knowledge,” he said.