CONSERVATIVE politicians will tonight make a last-ditch attempt to scupper controversial plans to redevelop a town square as a memorial to the Accrington Pals.

They will ask Hyndburn’s full council meeting to cancel the scheme in the centre of the town backed by £1.5million of Heritage Lottery cash.

Group leader Cllr Tony Dobson will say the borough’s matching contribution of £1.5m could be better spent on other things to revive Accrington’s central retail area and reopening the road in front of the market and town halls.

The First World War Accrington Pals regiment also included recruits from nearby towns such as Burnley, Blackburn and Chorley and 235 were killed and 350 wounded in the first half hour of the 1916 Battle of the Somme.

Cllr Dobson said: “This is not what people want to happen and is not value for money.

“We are in danger of having an events square without events.”

But the council’s Labour leader Cllr Miles Parkinson said: “We have consulted extensively over this and it is what residents and businesses in the town want.

“It is a memorial to all those brave soldiers who lost their lives a century ago.

“The scheme already has planning permission and the Lottery Grant is specifically about heritage and our memories of the Pals.

“Cllr Dobson knows there is no money to reopen the roads.

“I shall be announcing a new £50,000 budget for a range of events over the two years after the Pals Square opens in 2018.”

The proposals include mock trenches, sculptures and ‘duckboard’ benches commemorating the Pals.

UKIP’s Cllr Malcolm Pritchard said: “We will be 100 per cent voting against this move.

“It is the Tories being difficult for its own sake.”

The felling of two trees for the square sparked an online petition of ‘no confidence’ in Hyndburn Council now signed by more than 700 people.