Construction of a new airport in the Western Sydney region requires multiple graves to be exhumed in the Badgerys Creek area.
Badgerys Creek Uniting Church and St John’s Anglican Church have not had a new burial since the 1990s, however, there are still over 40 graves in the locations.
These 40-something graves must be unearthed, forcing families to re-bury their loved ones to make way for the new Sydney airport. This news was announced all the way back in 2015.
The Shadlows, who had to rebury seven relatives spoke to ABC about how difficult the ordeal was for them.
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“I never like to know about graves being disturbed, there’s a lot of family emotion and with these particular graves there’s a lot of history involved so I was concerned when I was first notified of it,” Elizabeth Shadlow said.
John Shadlow told the ABC that relatives who had to be moved included, his sister, both of his grandfathers, a grandmother and his great grandfather.
The Federal Infrastructure Department (FID) are reassuring the public that they have been attempting to reach out to everyone who had family buried in the locations since early last year.
Sadly, there are still bodies in the locations that FID was unable to contact. There is no word on what will happen to these remains.
Construction of the airport will start next year.
The new airport is expected to support almost 28,000 direct and indirect jobs by 2031, five years after the airport opens in 2026.
