Muslims have been given planning permission to run education classes at weekends in Cambridge’s main mosque, despite neighbours claiming they are “at the end of their tether” with parking chaos.
One resident claimed parents were “aggressive” when they were asked to move their cars on from streets around the Mawson Road mosque, but councillors ruled it was not the planning system’s role to tackle these problems.
The east area committee granted retrospective consent for the mosque to hold a madrasa from 10am to 1.30pm on Saturdays and Sundays.
This follows last year’s decision to give permission until 2015 for continued use of an extension which increases the capacity of the mosque to about 500.
That decision limited educational activities to times of worship, on Fridays and during Ramadan, but the latest meeting heard there was no space for schooling while prayer was going on and therefore this had taken place at weekends instead.
Dr Corinne Duhig, vice-chairman of the Glisson Road/Tenison Road Area Residents’ Association, said neighbours supported the madrasa and welcomed a new liaison group but added parking problems were not being tackled quickly enough.
She told the packed meeting: “We are having a repeat of noise, fumes, traffic snarl-ups, inability for residents to actually access their own homes while cars are parked outside and aggression directed at people who are asking the cars to move on.
“This is something that has absolutely got to be addressed and put right because the neighbours are at the end of their tether.”
Mohammed Mahmood, from the mosque committee, said Cambridge’s Muslim community had grown hugely in recent years but that attempts to find larger premises were yet to come to fruition.
He said: “This place we have overgrown for a long time and we feel how the neighbours feel, we share their difficulties. There is no intention of anybody to be a nuisance.”
Mr Mahmood said the mosque was making major efforts to tackle illegal parking, deploying stewards, distributing leaflets and issuing posters.
But he said the madrasa’s work must continue, saying: “Our children must come to the mosque and learn how to behave and how to respect each other. The majority of people are well behaved, only one or two are not, and there are bad apples in every society.”
The council regards use of the mosque extension as a ‘stop-gap’ until a £17.5 million mosque is built on the former Robert Sayle warehouse site in Mill Road.
Cllr Sarah Brown, who represents Petersfield, said: “It’s difficult in a crowded area to balance needs, particularly when we have a residential street next to a religious facility being used for teaching and people are coming and going. It’s a crowded area and I can see tempers flare.
“Planning and enforcement are different issues and issues of parking inappropriately and conflict are not issues that a planning committee can deal with.
“They are issues that anti-social behaviour teams and police can deal with so, while I do sympathise with the points raised by the objectors on planning grounds, on planning grounds – as far as I can see – this should be approved.”
The application was approved unanimously. One objection had claimed the madrasa would “encourage extremism”, a report to councillors said.
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