THIS week has seen work start on a new housing estate on Omega.

And plans have been confirmed for a retail park featuring a McDonald's, Lidl and Costa.

But how much do you know about the history of the land.

Historian Janice Hayes has written a lot about Burtonwood airbase and the 'friendly invasion' of Americans it brought to Warrington.

RAF Burtonwood had opened in 1939, just in time for the crucial Battle of Britain, and the United States Army Air Force, which took over in 1942, played a vital support role for the war in Europe.

Remote from Luftwaffe bases but close to the port of Liverpool, technicians of the USAAF assembled and maintained over 15,000 aircraft, including every B17 Flying Fortress, the 8th American Army Air Force’s main bomber, which flew in the Second World War.

Over 15,000 aircraft spent time at Burtonwood, including the famous Memphis Belle, but no aircraft ever took off from Burtonwood to attack enemy targets. The base became the largest military installation in Europe, larger than Heathrow today.

Burtonwood airbase also played a vital role in the Berlin Air Lift of 1948 and through the era of the Cold War. Between 1948 and 1958 the base expanded to cover a 15-mile site.

After the Berlin Air Lift Burtonwood’s purpose again was to support the USAF’s 14,000 British operations. The base and its occupants also had a major economic impact, spending millions of dollars with local businesses and employing thousands of local civilians.

In 1967 Burtonwood became the largest US base in Europe as a US Army General Depot and the base’s mile-long Header House warehouse stored everything the US Army might need in the event of war in Europe.

During Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf War and the parallel conflict in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s it was rumoured that the supply depot held everything from a safety pin to a Sherman tank.

Apart from the area occupied by the US Army much of Burtonwood base fell into decline from the mid-1960s. In 1965 plans for a Burtonwood International airport failed to get off the ground.

The main runway disappeared with the construction of part of the M62 motorway along its length. In 1982 further parts of the base were handed over for the development of the Westbrook District of Warrington’s New Town.

On 17 April 1988 a symbolic landmark disappeared when demolition expert Fred Dibnah felled the ‘new’ control tower.

Once the US Army pulled out of the base in 1993 its fate was effectively sealed.

Soon new districts of Callands, Westbrook, Chapelford, Gemini and Omega covered the former base.