MORE than 750 people have signed a petition backing campaigners opposing plans to build 725 homes on the green belt.

Basildon’s Green Action Group has been fighting the proposals for land off Dry Street, Basildon, for years, but is now taking the fight directly to the Government.

In just a few weeks, 754 people have backed the e-petition calling on the Government’s Homes and Communities Agency to withdraw its plans.

Outline planning permission for the Government land and the nearby South Essex College site was given last June.

The sale of the college land will pay for the college’s £30million town centre campus to be built on the market site, with the market moving to St Martin’s Square.

Action group secretary Miriam Heppell said: “This is the first time we have done an e-petition.

We hope the agency will realise the land it owns isn’t just any bit of land but an important wildlife site and part of the Langdon Ridge and the Langdon Hills landscape, not just a couple of fields.

“It is a really important, designated wildlife site. It is so important to keep the continuity of the bigger area, and I am not really sure it has considered this fully.

“I think maybe the direct approach might be helpful, even if the agency comes back and explains why it wishes to go ahead. So far, there has been no dialogue.”

Basildon Natural History Society has also raised fears over plans to relocate several protected species of reptile, amphibians, invertebrates and plants from the Dry Street area to farmland next to Rettendon Church, within the boundary of Chelmsford Council.

Previously, the action group collected more than 5,000 signatures for a petition to Basildon Council against the plans as a whole, and hopes to match the response this time.

Campaigners are still debating whether to take the fight to the European Court of Justice after a judge threwout their case for a judicial review in the High Court. Mrs Heppell added: “In the meantime, we will fight every new plan that comes out.’’ Basildon Council leader Phil Turner said: “I think people have targeted the council as being behind the development, but it is the Homes and Communities Agency which is doing it and we are just trying to get the best deal out of it. As the planning authority, we can’t kick it out with no reasons.

“Let’s see where the action group gets to. I will be interested to read about its progress.”

To find out more about the petition, which will be submitted at the beginning of March, visit epetitions.direct.gov.uk/ petitions/71624