UK: New inquiry to look again at plans to build Europe’s largest mosque in London

COMMUNITIES SECRETARY Eric Pickles will have the final say in a long-running dispute around an east London site that had previously been set to be the home of a controversial 10,000-capacity mega-mosque.

In May last year, the London Borough of Newham took out an injunction stopping the Anjuman-E-Islahul-Mislimeen Trust from using the site at the Abbey Mills Riverine Centre in West Ham following years of breaches of planning conditions.

A public inquiry into the mega-mosque trustees’ appeal against the council’s rejection of their planning applications is set to start next month.

The inquiry is expected to last up to three weeks and kicks off on 3 June at the ExCel Exhibition Centre in London’s Docklands.

The trust had owned the site since 1996 and had originally been using it as the 2,500-capacity Abbey Mills Mosque – also known as the London Markaz – but plans had been made to build an extension; the Riverine Centre, which would have included a mosque originally reported, would become the biggest in Europe.

But in 2012, planning permission was denied following concerns over the size of the mosque – revised down from a capacity of 70,000 in early planning stages.

Tablighi Jamaat

Muslim sect the Tablighi Jamaat are widely viewed as having fundamentalist teachings and were described by Imam Dr Taj Hargey of the Muslim Education Centre in Oxford as ‘sexist and supremacist’, as well as exclusive.

The group has continued to use the site as a temporary place of worship.

Next month’s inquiry is thought to be nationally strategic and sensitive – especially so close to a General Election campaign - which is why it is thought the communities secretary Eric Pickles has reserved the decision to himself.

Mr Pickles’ decision will follow a recommendation from the Planning Inspector immediately following the inquiry, ahead of the communities secretary’s decision later in the year.

Alan Craig of the MegaMosqueNoThanks campaign, which will have formal representation at the inquiry, told Lapido: ‘On planning grounds Newham Council had a cast-iron case for rejecting the mega-mosque application. But our experience is that you cannot necessarily rely on Planning Inspectors to do the right thing.

‘Also, as the final decision will be taken by Eric Pickles, the issue will soon become a political matter and subject to the usual politically-correct and multi-culturalist pressures.

‘There is all to play for and we must support Newham Council.’

A spokesperson for Newham Council simply said that they were awaiting the outcome of the appeal hearing.

Newham Council’s injunction last year was taken out after the group insisted on continuing to use the temporary site as a place of worship.

Injunction

The injunction followed years of disputes between the trust and Newham Council. Temporary permission to use the site had originally expired in November 2006, then in February 2010 the mosque was served an enforcement notice. However, they successfully appealed the decision in May 2011 after which they were given two years to come up with new plans for the development of the site, which would comply with regulations. This deadline was then missed and eventually refused when it was finally handed in in late 2012.

Last May, Douglas Edwards QC who was acting on the council’s behalf, told a judge about the mosque’s 'long process of unauthorised development' and the 'repeated breaches of planning control' over the previous 17 years.

The inquiry begins on 3 June and will take place at the ExCel centre in London.