A large house in Longbridge Road will be converted a place of worship, reports Nick Clark, Local Democracy Reporter
A large house in Longbridge Road, Barking, is set to be converted into a mosque and community centre after councillors approved the plans.
Darul Ihsaan, which already has a mosque at 86 Longbridge Road, wants to expand to an additional site at number 142.
Plans submitted to the council said the mosque needs to expand because of “significant local demand and capacity limitiations” at its current site.
Councillors discussed whether to approve the proposal at a planning committee meeting yesterday (Tuesday 10th).
The council received 23 objections to the plans from people who said they were worried about noise, parking and crowds on nearby residential roads. Many of the objections were identical to one another.
The objections’ wording, submitted multiple times to the council, said the plan “provides no meaningful parking” and “causes residential and amenity harm”.
However, eight people wrote to the council to support the move.
One, a resident of Strathfield Gardens, said: “While I recognise that some residents have genuine concerns, many of the objections are rooted in assumption, speculation, and a misunderstanding of both the site context and the proposal itself, rather than in demonstrable planning harm.”
They said that Longbridge Road had “excellent public transport”, and that there are already parking management measures in place on Strathfield Gardens. They said this meant “concerns around parking are overstated”.
The mosque’s plans say that although the building will have a maximum capacity of 200 people, it only expects to reach this at Friday lunctimes for no longer than an hour.
They say: “The typical Friday lunctime peak is likely to attract approximately 120 users based on the local demand.
“In respect to all other congregational prayers, the number of attendees on a daily basis will be much lower” with a maximum of 30 people at lunchtimes.
They added that classes and fitness sessions at the mosque’s community centre would be limited to a maximum of 25 people per class.
Council planning officers also told the committee a survey by Darul Ihsaan found that 70% of its members said they would walk to the mosque.
Officers said surrounding residential streets were all covered by controlled parking zone (CPZ) restrictions.
They said there are 24 on-street parking spaces opposite the site in Longbridge Road, and more spaces at the Barking Park western car park.
Darul Ihsaan has also agreed to contribute £70,000 to the council for a review of CPZs to mitigate impacts.
Mosque chair Imam Ammaar said the mosque had been running from its current site “with no issues”.
He said: “We have been running the current space we’re in for the last six years.
“The busiest time is Ramadan and we’ve had no issues. What tends to happen is, with the prayers at night it tends to be staggered. Not everybody leaves all at once, everybody comes in all at once. People tend to come in staggered.”
He added: “It’s not like a party or big event. Most of the time – as it is with community centres – it tends to be staggered. So I think the worries about large crowds of people coming out is slightly misplaced.”
Councillors on the committee voted unanimously to approve the plans.
