Hamptons: A Problem The Council Created

As much as we are critical of the Chelmsford Muslim Society, the whole Hampton’s mess has been created by Chelmsford City Council, and it’s weak and inconsistent Planning Department.

Over the last three years, the council have raised local tensions, failed to use it’s powers, and blindly accepted everything that CMS have told them. Let’s take a look at the main issues.

withholding key information

The city council have been doing this since 2020, when an Freedom Of Information from a resident about the building use class was rejected citing legal protection privilege. Bizarrely this was council officers (funded by the public purse) taking advice from the council’s in-house lawyers (funded by the public purse), and then refusing the public access to key information that they paid for !

Every subsequent FOI request, has been answered with a responses withholding key information for the following reasons :

• It’s not in the public interest to disclose the withheld information

• Disclosing the withheld information would inhibit the council’s ability to keep the public safe and would raise community tensions.

• The withheld information attracts legal protection privilege.

• Disclosure of the information would affect the course of justice, the ability of a person to receive a fair trial or the ability of a public authority to conduct an enquiry of a criminal or disciplinary nature.

Of course, this covers pretty much all of the important information relating to the Hamptons situation, and allows the city council to make decisions behind closed doors, using legal advice you paid for, but are not allowed to see. How very open and transparent, and doesn’t the withholding of information lead to increased local tensions ?

Inconsistency of Decisions

In September 2020, they city council issued a letter to CMS that clearly stated that the proposed uses for worship submitted in June 2020, would require a change of use planning permission. Local residents were happy with that, which would allow a full consultation, before any decision was made.

Here’s the proposed use that CMS submitted:

This decision was issued following a full examination by experienced and highly qualified senior planning officials like Keith Holmes and Robin Hosegood, and with the benefit of legal advice

But by November 2020, it was clear that no planning application was going to be forthcoming, and the CEO of the city council wrote to us, stating that a “limited” use for worship and religious education was allowed under the building’s current planning permission, defined as:

i) part of the building on Fridays for a period of an hour to an hour and a half (or thereabouts) for prayers.

(ii) of a room on Saturday mornings by an external organisation (IQRA) for education, including some religious teaching.

Since then we’ve seen wave after wave of escalation of that use by CMS, all done without the council’s knowledge. Residents have asked Planning Services many times to define the boundaries and limits of the term “limited”. Using the term “limited use”, the council have allowed the addition of :

• Daily prayers ranging from 2.30am to 11.45pm.

• The use of the venue by an unlimited number of worshippers.

• The use for 30 continuous days and nights during Ramadan, outside of normal business hours

• The installation of ritual ablution facilities.

• The use of two rooms exclusively for prayer and meditation by the Muslim community.

• The addition of a madrassa offering nearly 50 hours of lessons per week

• The addition of ad hoc and irregular religious seminars and teaching.

Scroll back up and look at the June 2020 proposed uses, and compare it to the above list.

A new direction from higher powers

After November 2020, we’ve seen a change in direction from the council, who have bent over backwards to allow CMS to do pretty much what they like with Hamptons, and not enforce the multiple breaches reported by residents.

Ignore the two Certificates for Lawful Development that the council refused, that were so badly put together and full of misinformation. They could never have been approved without opening up the council to a Judicial Review.

The truth is that the council is broke, and must market Chelmsford as paragon of diversity, to attract developers, Angry ethnic minorities are not a good optic.

New legal advice and a new term “substantial”

This is pretty much the current situation, The latest decision to allow a full blown mosque and madrassa to operate without planning permission, is based on fresh legal advice from external counsel.

And this fresh legal advice won’t come cheap, up to £900 per hour, but no matter the cost, you won’t be allowed to see it.

The mosque has brought with it, all the anticipated issues with parking, noise and disturbance, traffic and highway safety. And it will only increase.

This newest legal assessment is based on the religious use occupying a “substantial” part of the building or a significant part of the week. But of course, there’s no definition of “substantial” supplied, so the council can just continue to facilitate the mosque expansion without scrutiny.

And you don’t have a say in the matter !!

KBO