02.01.22
The Dominant Use
The recent news that the Chelmsford Muslim Society have decided to use Hamptons for daily prayers, will come as no surprise to many of you.
Throughout this campaign, CMS have been constantly attempting to bend the planning rules (that apply to all of us), to bypass the planning process, and allow the full use of Hamptons as a mosque and Islamic centre.
We’d now go as far to say that the use for worship and religious education is now the dominant use of the Hamptons club. No doubt that by pointing this out, we’ll once again be labelled as racist and Islamophobic, but there is no other way for us to express our concerns, without speaking plainly.
NO PLANNING PERMISSION FOR DAILY PRAYERS
In June 2020 the CMS submitted plans to the city council for the use of two rooms for daily prayers. After much deliberation, Town Planning ruled that this would need planning permission.
In the meantime, CMS had begun to use Hamptons main hall for Friday prayers, starting on July 31st 2020, as temporary measure during the pandemic, despite having a fully Covid compliant building available at the Parkway Mosque. This temporary use still continues to this day, despite there being no real reason to do so.
The use of the main hall for Friday prayers is permitted by the city council as part of the wider community use of the venue, covered by it’s current planning permission, However, the use of the two merged rooms for daily prayers goes beyond that permitted limited use, and is a breach of planning control. Report the breach here.
In terms of hours of use, the addition of daily prayers, takes the use for worship from the permitted 1.5 hours per week to 17.5 hours per week.
THE IQRA LEARNING CENTRE
Run by the wife of the chairman of the CMS, the ILC runs a faith school at Hamptons on Saturdays for up to 90 children. It describes itself as
“A non-profit making organization with over 100 pupils and employs approximately 20 members of staff. We teach three core subjects; Quran, Islamic Studies and Qur’anic Arabic for 6 to 16+ year olds''.
We can find no record of any Ofsted registration, nor is it registered with the Charity Commission.
The use for religious education is also permitted as part of the wider community use of the venue, but should be restricted to a single room on a Saturday morning, which we would suggest is being ignored, giving the numbers attending.
Although the use for the Islamic faith school is only 4 hours, it takes the running total of use for prayers and religious education up to 21.5 hours per week.
KIDS ACTIVITY CAMPS
As a group we fully support the use of public funding to benefit the whole community during these difficult times. The recent funding of kids activity camps during the school holidays has helped many families struggling with child care, and provided a nutritious meal too.
But that’s not what’s happening at Hamptons, with the funding being handed to the Iqra Learning Centre and the Chelmsford Muslim Society, who are clearly running a faith based activity camp. Although this is great business for Hamptons, who are making a fortune from these camps, we’d have to question that it benefits the whole community. Take a look at the video below:
The latest kids activity camp at Hamptons started at Hamptons on 20/12/21, and once again being run by the Iqra Learning Centre and the Chelmsford Muslim Society. here’s the ad on Facebook:
Funding is once again being provided by ActivAte Essex, who make no mention that it’s a faith based activity club on their website. We’ll be contacting them after Christmas to ask for an explanation, as we feel that a faith based activity club doesn’t meet their criteria for funding, and excludes the majority of local children.
THE DOMINANT USE
With daily prayers, a faith school using multiple rooms on a Saturday and now running an activity camp in the holidays, it’s pretty clear that the use of Hamptons is now moving away from the promised “health and fitness” route.
If you now add in the hours for the kids winter actvity club, it takes the use for worship and religious education up to a whopping 37.5 hours per week.
There’s no doubt that Hamptons is now an Islamic Centre with a few random activities tacked on to attempt to pay the bills, and to convince the city council that is at least some non-religious use.
Pretty much what we predicted would happen !
KBO