Martin Hornby Posted 3 June , 2003 Share Posted 3 June , 2003 Today the French Government have announced that the third Paris Airport will not be located on the Somme Battlefield. Martin Hornby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Hill 60 Posted 3 June , 2003 Share Posted 3 June , 2003 Sounds like good news, but where else will it go? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoff Parker Posted 4 June , 2003 Share Posted 4 June , 2003 Heathrow, Catwick, or Sanstead I expect!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greenwoodman Posted 4 June , 2003 Share Posted 4 June , 2003 Article in the Telegraph at Airport given the Elbow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AOK4 Posted 4 June , 2003 Share Posted 4 June , 2003 Only a small remark about the article: why can't anyone understand the difference between total casualties (killed, wounded, missing and POW) and total number killed? Jan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Denham Posted 4 June , 2003 Share Posted 4 June , 2003 You jest about the airport being put in the UK but if the Gatwick plans go ahead (which I support - sorry) for a new runway, then a number of war graves may possibly be affected at Lowfield Heath, West Sussex. However, I have a friend who is a senior executive with Crawley Borough Council (the cemetery authority in this case) who assures me that they would move all graves and not concrete them over! They have just done so to another cemetery to make way for a supermarket (no war graves involved). For those who don't know, Lowfield Heath churchyard (closed) is only three or four hundred yards from the Gatwick runway at present. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AOK4 Posted 4 June , 2003 Share Posted 4 June , 2003 Something similar, when building the "Expresweg" near Ypres (Ypres-Poperinge Road IIRC), several British war graves in Vlamertinge had to be moved and were moved (Brandhoek Cemeteries IIRC). It has been done before and I don't understand exactly why the British nowadays have more problems with graves being moved than let's say 25 years ago... Of course some sites should be protected, but one can't protect everything and trying to keep living in the past. There should be some kind of compromise. Jan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Reed Posted 4 June , 2003 Share Posted 4 June , 2003 Terry, as you may recall, I used to live in Crawley and know Lowfield Heath well. There is a fine war memorial there, too, and also an original wooden grave maker to a Middlesex Regt officer. Hope they will be saved too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Denham Posted 4 June , 2003 Share Posted 4 June , 2003 Paul You will know how close to the runway this church is then! And it's in the middle if an industrial estate. The planned runway has a long way to go before getting approval (if ever) and it may be sited the other side of the airport but I have got in early with the 'powers that be' about the war graves - I'll mention the memorial as well. I am sure BAA can afford to move them all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Coulson Posted 6 June , 2003 Share Posted 6 June , 2003 "The land in France occupied by British War Cemeteries is, by a law of 29th December 1915, the free gift of the French people for the perpetual resting place of those who are laid there." Does this law still apply.?? Bob. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Lines Posted 8 June , 2003 Share Posted 8 June , 2003 As far as I know Bob, yes. I seem to remember reading in Stand To! a few years ago that there were unfounded concerns that "in perpetuity" in France only meant 100 years? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Simon Bull Posted 9 June , 2003 Share Posted 9 June , 2003 Whilst i know little or nothing about French law, I would be extremely surprised if perpetuity meant "for ever" in French law. Most developed legal systems have to have a doctrine which prevents land being tied up "for ever" in any particular way because the social consequences of land (land being a resource which is finite) becoming tied up can be very severe (eg the English law of perpetuities about which lengthy tomes have been written, developed in order to prevent wealthy land owning families from tying up land for too long). Furthermore, I doubt that the French "donation" of the land in perpetuity protects it from any compulsory purchase laws that there will be in France. Whether the cemeteries remain untouched is actually a moral and political issue and not really a legal one. Simon Bull Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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