A PRESSURE group has been set up on the social networking site Facebook to fight plans to build 750 homes on the edge of Tavistock.

The Stop the Build Protect the Tavy Valley Group has vowed to do all it can to protect the area west of the town which it considers to be of outstanding natural beauty.

West Devon Borough Council's core strategy or development blueprint for the next 16 years includes building much of the new housing for Tavistock on a site off Callington Road. The plans for the site involve the reinstatement of a rail link.

The group has so far received the support of 180 members. Spokesperson Kyloe Wolf said: 'It's a gross injustice. With so many properties for sale and so few jobs in the Tavistock area how can the borough council justify this monstrous plan?'

The group aims to raise public awareness and plans to take the campaign to national levels.

'Anyone can get involved,' said Kyloe Wolf. 'People need to get out there and walk the fields and the old railway line to appreciate what they will lose, there is an enormous amount of wildlife that needs protecting, and the Tavistock canal will never be the same quiet walk as it is now.'

Another concern the group has is the increase in traffic into the town along Callington Road.

'Seven hundred and fifty homes equates to another one thousand cars. The railway will bring no economic benefit, and Tavistock will become a suburb of Plymouth.

'We have a railway link just a few miles up the road at Gunnislake, why bring it to Tavistock?'

Photos of the flora and fauna of the area are included on the Facebook page to indicate what is at stake, said the group.