Fears have been raised that children’s graves in Manchester could be dug up as part of ongoing sewage works. The closed Collyhurst Jewish burial ground in north Manchester was used mainly to bury children of poor families until the late 19th century.

The grounds were landscaped by Manchester City Council in 1986 and are being partly dug up in major sewer system work being carried out by United Utilites. However, there is confusion over who owns the land, which once belonged to Manchester Great Synagogue.

Manchester Beth Din expressed concern that the remains of the infants, buried without gravestones due to poverty, might not be detected by standard ground-scanning techniques.