This is an artists impression of the Islamic monstrosity that an Islamic group is trying to foist on the people of South Woodford in North East London.
On Wednesday 11th December the planning committee of the London Borough of Redbridge refused permission for the building of a mosque, by a group called the Qu’rani Murkaz Trust, that would have dominated the South Woodford area.
In a very close vote, so close in fact that the chair of the planning committee Cllr Robin Turbefield had to use his casting vote, as the committee was deadlocked with 3 councillors in favour of the new Mosque and 3 against.
This mosque expansion was objected to by many locals and hundreds of objection letters had been submitted to the local authority. There had also been hundreds of requests made to speak at the planning meeting against this proposed mosque.
I attended this meeting as an observer (a big thank you to those who invited me) and listened to both the objectors to the project, and to those in favour. Those objecting to this mosque expansion lived quite close to the site and told of their fears of loss of privacy, extra traffic, and potential road safety issues as well as this building blocking out sunlight to some local residents because of the sheer bulk of the proposed mosque building.
Those who run this mosque were also alleged to not be behaving in a neighbourly way even before the mosque is expanded, and one garage owner said that he had been trading there for 20 years but since the mosque started up, he had been afflicted by issues such as inconsiderate parking from mosque-goers, including blocking access to his business.
Those who were in favour of the mosque were a completely different kettle of fish to the objectors. None of them lived near the mosque, and many of them did not use facts about the mosque or the affect it has on the local area, but instead relied on either praising the mosque for its ‘community work,’ or relied on emotion based appeals to the planning committee.
One particular pro-mosque speaker stuck in my mind, a non-Muslim retired former social worker, named Ms Helen Phillips. Like the other pro mosque speakers she was not a local resident who would be directly afflicted by this mosque. She was especially shameless in her bigging-up of the mosque project. Her greasy sycophancy towards the mosque project turned my stomach it really did. She praised the work done by the mosques for elderly Muslim women, and appeared to be yet another fully paid up member of the Islam appeasement club. All I can say is that if she is that willing to appease and back an Islamic group as she did, I’m bloody glad she isn’t working in the social work field any more.
The mosque expansion was not going to be a discreet one, it was designed to dominate and intimidate the non-Muslim people around them. Everything from the size to the inappropriate decoration on the building was counter to what the local residents wanted.
Although it is very good that planning permission for this mosque monstrosity was refused, this is not the end of the battle. I noticed that the mosque promoters were looking distinctly unperturbed by the planning refusal and it is highly likely that they will appeal and they were looking worryingly confident when they left the meeting. It is vital to keep up the pressure on this issue. Mosque-e-teers are often backed up by vast amounts of often Saudi money to fund mosque building and fighting legal challenges to the imposition of mosques. It is vital that those opposed to this monstrosity do not let up on their fight.
This project isn’t intended to be a place of quiet worship, in its style, size, position and adornment, it is a giant ‘f**k you’ to all the non-Muslims in the area. It must be fought, even though there is a strong possibility that the mosque-e-teers or their supporters will start playing dirty over this matter.
I don’t often say this but well done to those Redbridge councillors who refused this particular attempt to impose this blight on the people of South Woodford.
Links
How the local newspaper has reported this story
http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/rbnews/10872861.Mosque_development_plans_rejected/
How the Bare Naked Islam website has reported this story
http://www.barenakedislam.com/2013/12/14/uk-town-grows-a-pair-rejects-mosque-expansion/
Report on the planning meeting from the local Lib Dem councillors
http://roding.mycouncillor.org.uk/2013/12/12/south-woodford-muslim-centre-planning-application/
Home page of the Qurani Murkuz Trust who run the current mosque and are aiming to expand it.
http://qmtrust.org.uk/content/management-operation Although they are a Trust, they do not appear to be a charity and carry no charity registration number on their website. I searched the Charity Commission website and found no charitable registration, however it may well be that they are registered with the CC under another name or a variant of the name Qurani Murkuz Trust.
