THE group fighting plans for a new hotel near Salcombe has taken its legal challenge against South Hams Council to the next stage.

Keep South Sands Beautiful is seeking a judicial review into the council's decision to approve plans to demolish the closed Tides Reach hotel, and replace it with a larger, modern building.

The group says it is fighting to avoid 'a permanent blot on the face of South Sands'.

The new hotel would have 51 rooms, up from 35, and opponents say its design and scale would make it much more visually intrusive in the green and relatively unspoilt setting of South Sands.

Objecting to the proposals last year, Salcombe Town Council called the proposed building 'dominant' and 'overbearing'.

KSSB say that it has tried to persuade South Hams Council to accept that its decision was wrong, and avoid going through the process of seeking a judicial review, with inevitable expense for both sides.

Among the issues they say thay have identified are a failure to demonstrate that English Heritage was consulted, and a failure to make public an economic study carried out by Savills justifying the development.

For more on this story, see this week's Kingsbridge & Salcombe Gazette