Camberley churches criticism at mosque that will building over Sandhurst

Fiona Hamilton, London Correspondent & , : {}

Churches have assimilated together to criticism opposite plans for a mosque that would construction over the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, with one apportion describing it as a supremacist matter for Islam.

A common comprising each church in Camberley, Surrey, has lambasted plans for the hulk mosque, notice that will emanate usually multiplication and conflict in the town.

The offer has already caused security concerns in troops circles as the mosque includes 30m (100ft) minarets that would disremember Sandhurst.

The programmed mosque lies only 360m from the academy, where hundreds of newly commissioned Army officers take to the march belligerent each year for their flitting out ceremony. The eventuality attracts comparison members of the Royal Family as well as critical troops figures.

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The mosque offer has additionally generated widescale internal tension, with campaigners notice that the structure, that additionally includes an towering dome, is out of balance with the towns architecture.

Local Muslims have been worshipping at a former Victorian propagandize for the past fourteen years, but right away wish to set up their own mosque on the same site.

This week Churches Together, a common of Camberley churches, pronounced that it was not against to a mosque in the area but the due growth was environment the stage for enmity in between the Muslim village and the wider village in Camberley for years to come.

Rev Mark Chester, of St Pauls Church and the groups chairman, said: I think it satisfactory to contend that a mosque with dual 100ft minarets and a large towering architecture is creation not so most a spiritual, as a absolute cultural, or even domestic statement.

The Rev Bob Peck, of St Martins Church, pronounced that the place of the construction was inapt since of bad access. He combined that the churches were really happy for a mosque for be built but that it should be inside of the internal context.

They appear to have a domestic bulletin and they wish to have a big statement. Its a supremacist statement, he said.

Major-General Tim Cross (retired), who lives in the area, told The Times that the minarets and architecture acted a poignant security threat, quite since the inlet of the visitors to Sandhurst.

General Cross, who was second in authority of the bid to reconstruct Iraq after the toppling of Saddam Hussein, said: "Visitors self-evidently yield poignant intensity targets being plainly on arrangement around the college construction and elsewhere.

The redevelopment is being due by the Bengali Welfare Association, that runs the stream mosque, that attracts up to 300 people each week to Friday prayers.

Abdul Wasay Chowdhury, the spokesman, pronounced that there was a lot of misinformation about the mosque. This is not a domestic statement, we do not know anything about politics. We are elementary people who wish to do according to the conviction he said.

He combined that entrance inside of the minarets would not go over the tallness of a house, as they would be filled in with petrify and thus will not poise a security risk. He pronounced the pattern had been selected since of the high architectural quality.

The Ministry of Defence primarily lifted concerns about security risks from the tallest tools of the building. It pronounced in a statement: Plans were revised so that entrance to the towers would be limited to necessary upkeep work.

The formulation focus will be motionless by Surrey Heath Borough Council at a assembly tonight and is approaching to capture large protests.

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