Plans for a super mosque close to the Olympic stadium reveal that it could hold almost 10,000 people. Architects' drawings show that the vast mosque will be about the same size as Battersea Power Station. By comparison, Britain's largest cathedral, in Liverpool, can hold 3,000 worshippers.

Newham Council in east London is due to decide whether it will grant planning permission for the structure next month.

Former councillor Alan Craig has launched a campaign to stop the project. He has produced 100,000 leaflets, which were being distributed throughout the borough yesterday. Mr Craig said: "The mega-mosque is proposed and planned by a particularly disturbing Islamic sect called Tablighi Jamaat."

He said that Tablighi Jamaat had been promoting itself as open and socially integrated. However, progressive Muslims who support the campaign against the mosque view its beliefs as "narrow and divisive". He said: "In my view we would be mad, barking mad, if we let the project go ahead."

Sunday Express, 4 November 2012

This has prompted the usual ignorant and bigoted comments from readers:

"Why encourage the destabilization of society by pandering to the needs of Islamic sect's which are funder mentally detrimental to the religious and political stability of the British Isles. An Islamic state is being created from within with the aid of the political correctness brigade and short sighted politicians."

"... we WILL end up with a mosque on the CORNER of each street in the country because they are ALLOWED to do JUST as they wont. In some inner city areas there are several mosques within walking distant of each other, WHY do they need so many. US Christians NEED to start making our objection HEARD. NOW before its too late"

"You can put money on it that this will be a wahhabi mosque with most of the money for building and maintaining it coming from Saudi Arabia. It will be another centre like the Regent's Park mosque (Channel 4 undercover mosques The Return) for preaching hatred against us and all we stand for. I have said and written many time before that the Wahhabi version of Islam should be banned as a dangerous brain washing sect that is a danger to our national security and should be banned from the UK."

Meanwhile, further to the right, the Sunday Express report has provoked equally predictable calls for arson attacks on the mosque and those worshipping in it.

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A group which opposed the building of a £500,000 mosque in Lincoln has now promised to work alongside the Islamic association.

The proposed, two-storey place of worship at the Old Boultham Dairy, could win full planning permission on November 7. If approved, the mosque could be up and running in about two years.

Boultham Residents' Association started a petition against the plans last year. Members were concerned about the level of traffic the building would bring to the area.

A joint statement has now been issued by Jean Flannery, chairman of the residents' association and Dr Tanweer Ahmed, trustee of the Islamic association which says they are happy to work together.

It said: "We hope that we can co-exist peacefully, as one community in all its diversity. It falls to each one of us to accept our responsibility to recognise and respect the rights of the other, to be good neighbours."

Mrs Flannery, of Church Drive, off Boultham Park Road, added: "Plans for the mosque are taking a step forward with the planning committee meeting on November 7 to consider an application for full planning permission.

"With no foreseeable obstacle to full planning consent being granted, we are looking to lay the foundations for a good and mutually beneficial relationship, one including all the members of our diverse community.

"Engaging local residents with the mosque, giving them an interest in it, will hopefully help it to become just another strand in our community life. It will also hopefully help members of the mosque who live in the wider area to feel more part of the local neighbourhood.

"Any big new development inevitably brings its worries. Traffic and congestion issues will always be with us. We are urging highways to make the best possible provision, given what is possible, as we trust they will."

Lincolnshire Echo, 25 October 2012

This is excellent news and one in the eye for the far right, who have consistently opposed the Islamic Association of Lincoln's plans for the development of the Boutham Park Dairy site.

In July 2010 the Islamic Association held a meeting for local Muslims to discuss the way forward after their original plan had been rejected by Lincoln Council. It was disrupted by a group of thugs from the English Defence League, who abused the participants and assaulted a Muslim policemen when he arrived in response to a call for help. The EDL's Casuals United section openly boasted about their involvement in this hooliganism, commenting: "Good work chaps, NO SURRENDER."

Subsequently two of those reponsible for the attack were convicted of religiously aggravated threatening behaviour (see here, here and here).

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