Open-air prayer at West Ham

Written by David Fletcher 05 Oct 2018
Open-air prayer at West Ham

There will be a prayer meeting on 6 October in West Ham overlooking the site of a radical Islamic group’s proposed ‘mega-mosque’. Three years ago the Government refused the appeal of the Anjuman-e-islahul-Muslimeen Trust against Newham Council’s decision not to grant them planning permission for the development, which would be the largest place of worship in Britain. Legally, Newham could now send in the bulldozers. But this decision will be taken by new mayor Rokhsana Fiaz, whose election promise to ‘tax the value of development land to help our housing programme’ could impact the trustees of the site. An option open to the trust is a new planning application for mixed use, not for using the site as a place of worship, but instead they are going to the European Court of Human Rights to try to keep alive their dream.

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