A £21 million sterling (€34 million) terminal at Belfast City Airport (BCA) got the go-ahead yesterday after a legal challenge was dismissed in the Belfast High Court.

The attempt to block the terminal and associated facilities at Sydenham was taken by rival Belfast International Airport (BIA) at Aldergrove.

Its application for a judicial review of planning permission was based on environmental concerns. In a reserved judgment Mr Justice Kerr held the planning service of the Department of the Environment had acted properly in granting planning permission.

The judge said that during last Friday's hearing, counsel for BIA had claimed the environmental impact statement was incomplete because there was no assessment of effects on ecology, particularly flora and fauna. But the judge said the Department was entitled to hold that such matters were unlikely to be significantly affected by the development and therefore were not required to be included in the environmental statement.

Mr Justice Kerr refused to grant leave for a judicial review, allowing BCA to proceed with building work already under way. BCA, owned by Canadian company Bombardier Aerospace, plans to double passenger traffic to two million a year.

Mr Ken Brundle, vice-president and general manager of Bombardier Aerospace, welcomed the ruling, saying BIA's owners, Welsh-based TBI, had consistently sought to prevent or delay much-needed improvements at BCA for commercial reasons.

"TBI's drive to have an airport monopoly is well known," said Mr Brundle. "In our view it is against the public interest, an opinion shared by three important independent organisations - the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, the General Consumer Council and the panel conducting the public examination into the Draft Regional Strategic Framework for Northern Ireland."