Interesting but worrying news from Hereford where a group of Muslims are having another crack at imposing a mosque where it isn’t wanted. Islamic groups were defeated once before in their attempts to saddle Hereford with an unwanted mosque but the plans were kicked out due to local objections and fire safety concerns.

However they are having another go at imposing a mosque by way of the ‘community centre’ trick. This trick involves getting planning permission for a ‘multicultural’ or Islamic ‘community centre, or even taking over an existing open access community centre and as soon as the building is in Islamic community hands, the ‘community centre’ is swiftly turned into a mosque. This is what has happened in the London Borough of Redbridge where a workingmans club was gifted by the council to a Muslim group who promised faithfully that the building would be ‘for all’ but swiftly broke that promise and the building became a de facto mosque over the objections of the local community, see here here here and here.

Here’s the Hereford Times, the ‘establishment’ local newspaper on the subject of the new mosque, for that is what it is, plans. The original text from the Hereford Times is in italics whereas my comments on the article are in plain text.

A local Islamic group has put forward a plan for a multicultural community centre in Hereford.

Multicultural, my arse. This is a mosque but under a different and lets be honest here, less truthful name.

But the position shown on the application is “only to confirm positioning outside flood risk zones”, following pre-application advice from a council officer.

Why are council officers giving out pre-application advice to mosque-e-teers? Would they be giving out similar advice to a potential synagogue or church application? Many will suspect not especially as one of the commenters in the Hereford Times article has alleged that churches that seek to expand are being hampered by planning rules. The commenter Welsh Herefordian said in response to another commenter remarking on low church attendance: Many churches in Hfd are getting far more than 10 to 15 people . There’s quite a few looking fir bigger premises but they come up with the same problem .. the planning department! I will say no more !

The Hereford Times continued:

A detailed design for the proposed “substantially single-storey” building, which “seeks to meet an identified need in Hereford”, is to be submitted at a later stage.

This Islamic group is not even telling the people and the council what they want but want planning permission granted in outline anyway.

“The time and cost implications for the client will be substantial and it is therefore fundamental that the financial commitments can only be made if outline approval is obtained,” an accompanying statement from Mr Ali’s agent says.

“To enable the client to proceed therefore the principle of the proposal must be established with only nominal siting and access to be considered.”

This looks extremely dodgy. Having read the Hereford Times article and looked at the planning application itself this plan looks extremely concerning. It looks dodgy because of the seeming assistance to this group by council officers, the vagueness of the plans, the rather iffy claim that the centre will be ‘multicultural’, uncertainty as to where the money for this mosque is coming from and negative impact on both the immediate area and the city as a whole. There’s not even that much indication as to what flavour of Islam is pushing for this new mosque, however I doubt very much that it is one of the broadly open and pluralistic forms of Islam such as the Ahmediyya or the Aga Khan’s Ismaili lot.  I would counsel anyone living in this area who is worried about this to make comments on the application.

Comments on the application, numbered 222428, can be made until April 22.

It’s pretty obvious that there are going to be a number of objections to this mosque imposition plan and some evidence for a high level of objections is the behaviour of those who manage the comments section of the Hereford Times. On the comments section for this article there is a massive level of censorship and silencing going on as there are a great deal of comments that have been removed or refused publication by moderators. People who are likely to be adversely affected by this mosque plan need to get their arses into gear and start making objections and also contacting both their own councillors and the relevant ward councillor. It might also be worth the time and money for local people to engage someone like Gavin Boby whose Mosquebusters entity has fought 89 cases of mosque imposition and won 56 cases. It’s also worth visiting Mr Boby’s site as you will see for yourself how the dishonest ‘community centre’ excuse is being used to impose mosques where they are clearly not wanted.