Currently, Tablighi Jamaat and various
London
authorities are busily working behind the scenes to bring the mosque to reality.
The authorities involved are the London Development Agency (LDA), Newham Council and London Thames Gateway Development Corporation.
The LDA and the Newham council have said they are ‘very much in favour’ of the plan. This year’s LDA plan for the lower
Lea
Valley
zoned the area for a ‘community facilities cluster’, thus opening the way for the Abbey Mills Islamic Centre.
John Biggs, vice-chair of the LDA, wrote to a Christian Voice member that the ‘LDA Board will not have a leading role in this matter…’ However, Ali Mangera, the
London
and Barcelona-based architect who is designing the complex, said that he and members of Tablighi Jamaat did have several high-level meetings with LDA officials to discuss the matter.
According to an article that appeared in the Evening Standard, the LDA ‘was in ‘detailed discussions’ with the scheme’s promoters about how their plans could ‘compliment and fit around the 2012 Games’.
Board members of the LDA have tried to deny their involvement. Mary Reilly, Chair of the LDA, wrote to one of our members saying, ‘An article published in the Evening Standard inferred that the LDA is supporting the Centre. This is not our position…. We would not be seeking to influence their decision either way.’ However, this was contradicted by Ali Mangera, who said, ‘They [the DLA] are all very much in favour of the scheme. In particular they want to see an Islamic landmark.’
Local residents have been excluded from the LDA’s ‘detailed discussions’. Patrick Sookhdeo of the Barnabas Fund, complained that ‘The local people have not been consulted. They are going to have their community handed over.’
‘This mega-mosque will have a massive impact on West Ham and across east
London
’ said Cllr. Allen Craig, one of three Christian Peoples’
Alliance
councilors for Canning Town South in Newham. ‘Already mosque supporters are buying up residential properties in my own ward and other areas. Yet the mosque plans have not been made public and it certainly has not yet received formal planning permission. I have talked to residents and businesses around the mosque site, and they are astonished they have been told nothing. I smell a London Development Agency/Newham Council stitch-up, where decisions are taken over the heads of local people without their consent.’ (For more information, see Philip Johnston article ‘The shadow cast by a mega-mosque.’)
The London Thames Gateway Development Corporation has also been heavily involved in the process, working closely with members of the LDA. According to a report from the Daily Mail on 27 September, ‘A decision on whether it gets the go-ahead will rest not with Newham's elected councillors but with the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation. …if the corporation approves the proposal there will be no right of appeal. However, if the quango rejects the scheme Tablighi Jamaat can appeal to the Government.’ (Read full report HERE.)
