The position of Mayor of a major cathedral city is one that should be occupied by someone with unimpeachable integrity, with a knowledge of the city’s governance and a proper respect for the Law. None of those attributes are ones that appear to be held by the Muslim Mayor of Worcester Mr Allah Ditta, the Conservative Party incumbent in this post. After all, those who are full of integrity, knowledge and respect for the law, don’t put their names to iffy planning applications do they?

Mr Ditta, who owns a number of properties in the Worcester area, is at the centre of a storm over his seeming involvement with an Islamic cemetery that has not only been heavily criticised by the Environment Agency, but was also created illegally and without prior planning permission. The problems that this illegal cemetery could cause look to me to be quite serious. They range from contamination of ground water and potential drinking water sources as coffins leak, right through to the danger of grave digging disturbing explosive methane pockets and releasing them to the wider environment.

Astonishingly, the reason Cllr Ditta is at the centre of this row is that it is his name that is on the application for retrospective planning permission, which many will assume will mean that Ditta is in someway involved in an organisation that blatantly flouted planning law. This is not a good look for Cllr Ditta, even if he is only helping out some friends with the retrospective application and had nothing to do with the original creation of the cemetery. Note there is no information that I can find that any association with the cemetery has been put on the register of members interests nor on any list of other organisations with which the Mayor is associated with.

Here’s a part of what the Worcester News said about this worrying case involving potentially exploding graves and rotten cadavers in the water system.

MAJOR concerns have been raised over whether the land at a cemetery is suitable to bury people in, with fears coffins could leak into the city’s water.

The Environment Agency (EA) said it has a number of “major concerns” about Worcester Mayor Allah Ditta’s application for retrospective planning permission for burial land at Worcester Muslim Cemetery in John Comyn Drive, due to possible water pollution, and has called for alternative locations to be found.

EA says the site, used as a cemetery since 2005, is unsuitable for human burials and doesn’t meet its standards for groundwater – and has raised these fears on at least three occasions dating back to 2008. Three letters of concern were sent by the EA highlighting its issues with the site in August 2008, June 2010 and April 2016.

So what appears to have happened here is that the Muslim cemetery was not only built on land that was unsuitable for it, but also without planning permission and then seemingly the cemetery management ignored eight years and three letters of concern from the Environment Agency. This looks like a shameful bout of piss taking by the cemetery bosses and the local Islamic establishment. The local authority seem to have behaved little better. They seem to have let this issue fester for many years when what was needed was enforcement action against the cemetery much much earlier. From reading the Worcester News article I gather that the Muslim group running the mosque and the council had planning permission for part of the site but the cemetery management illegally extended the burial site into areas that were unsafe and did so without caring that it was illegal.

The Worcester News added:

There are also concerns that historical landfill sites at Bilford Road, which sits about 20 metres away, would also be considered a risk because of gas. Holes dug for burials could cause slumps in the ground and gas to leak into the ground and water.

The report said: “We have concerns that burials are already taking place at this site without planning permission and against the advice we previously provided.

Whilst it is a grimly comical thought that the graves of members of a religion that has gained a world wide reputation for having its adherents blowing themselves and others up, might inadertantly explode, this is no laughing matter for the residents of the City of Worcester. Because of the actions of the cemetery management creating a burial place where it is unsafe to do so, Worcester’s residents now have tolive in fear of random grave explosions and potentially toxic water. The application for retrospective planning permission should I believe be refused and should have been seen by the Mayor as, pardon the pun, ‘a poison chalice’ of a case to which Cllr Ditta’s name should not have been attached. I fail to see what Cllr Ditta gets out of this case apart from a damaged reputation? Maybe those behind the cemetery believe that having Cllr Ditta’s name on the application may help it succeed? It shold be noted that the illegal cemetry is only one example of piss taking by local Muslims. There is also the issue of the ‘megamosque’ that Muslim groups want to impose on the city, a project that only the Muslims and their fellow travelers in the local political and religious elite seem to want.

I’d like to think that the local authority will see sense and close this cemetery and remove the potential hazards to health and the environment from it. However knowing local authorities and knowing also how pandering to the Islamic community has become the be all and end all of too many of those who work in councils, I suspect that this application will be approved. The Muslims are likely to be told to make some remedial works that might or might not be completed to a satisfactorylevel, but the scheme, especially with the backing of Cllr Ditta, may be approved, after all we must not upset or inconvenience the ‘religion of peace’ must we? Yet again we will have seen a situation where Muslim groups take the piss out of the law in general and in planning law in particular and end up being rewarded for doing so.