PLANS to build an airport on the site of French graveyards housing the war dead have caused outrage - especially in East Lancashire, from where some of the soliders whose bodies could be moved came.

David Higgerson finds out more...

BILL Turner may not have been alive when the Accrington Pals went to war, but he certainly knows their story and shares in the sense of pride the town has for its fallen heroes.

He is also a historian who has spent 15 years writing books to make sure the memory of the First World War fighters lives on long after his lifetime.

So the scene in 2002 in the village of Serre, an hour's drive from Calais, of where the Pals fought in 1916, is familiar to him.

It has provided a focal point for hundreds of thousands of people who have travelled to pay their respects to those from across East Lancashire who died.

Eighty-six years ago, at 7am on July 1, the Pals were among those ordered to 'go over the top' and walk - not run - towards the German trenches across No Man's Land. Simple, they were told, because the trenches were deserted. In fact, they were anything but.

Few of the Pals who went over survived. It was a scenario which was repeated throughout that day - when 60,000 lives were lost - and, indeed, for months.

Just 30 miles down the road from Serre is Chaulnes. Slightly larger, it is little more than a hamlet.

It is surrounded by a cluster of graveyards, including the graves of people who fought in the East Lancashire Regiment, of which the Accrington Pals Battalion was part.

Now the French government is planning to build a third airport for Paris in the area.

Several graveyards could be shifted and bodies exhumed in the pursuit of a new tourist airport for the French capital.

Bill, who lives in Accrington, believes it could herald the start of development across the region which could lead to more graves being moved - including those at Serre. The new French administration has agreed to review the plans for the airport, but has not gone so far as to scrap them, which worries Bill.

"So many people go to the graveyards and no-one can be failed to be moved by them," he said. "The graveyards are actually at the place where the men fell. That is what makes them so important. They aren't a tourist attraction.

"If they move one graveyard, what is to stop them moving another one and another one so they fit in around developments?

"I have studied the plans and the flight paths would go right over the graveyards near Serre.

"The government in France sees the Somme area as an untapped tourist area and wants to develop it to get more tourists in.

"We have to make sure the airport does not go ahead as it sets a dangerous precedent."

Hyndburn MP Greg Pope has been to the site at Serre several times.

He said: "There is no doubt that at the moment, part of the reverence of these graveyards is that they are situated where the battles took place.

"The ground is sacred and should be there for people to remember for generations."

At the moment, there is nothing more moving than seeing the badge of the East Lancashire Regiment on a small white grave in remote northern France.

"And it has to stay like that," said Bill.