"If you want to know the future, look to the past"

-Albert Einstein

While the Chelmsford Muslim Society continues to secretly convert the whole Hamptons venue to a mosque and Islamic centre, we take a look back at the begginings of their project, from 2018.

A deleted website

Isn’t modern technology wonderful ? Even though CMS took down the cic.city website, we’ve been able to retrieve the content and images. The website relates to the 2018 plan to purchase a piece of land at 279 Beehive Lane from the council, a deal that subsequently fell through.

We’ve always considered this was a better option than Hamptons, as it would have had no impact on sports and leisure uses, and cause minimal disruption to residents

But details of the services that CMS planned to provide, we believe are further evidence of the long term plans for Hamptons.

Now this does look very similar to sections of recent applications that CMS have submitted to the council. And it’s pretty clear that their long term objectives haven’t changed:

“We need a place that provides more than a prayer space as was the case during the Prophet’s صلى الله عليه وسلم time

A space which can help to facilitate better youth engagement, hold outreach\dawah programmes, have provisions for ladies’ prayer, Islamic studies and development, a library, funeral services and general community services for the benefit for all communities.

We need a madrassa that can provide an all-encompassing Islamic education for our children”

-taken from FAQ at cic.city

more historic literature

No doubt CMS will claim that this “historic literature” doesn’t relate to Hamptons. We disagree.

It’s evidence of their long term aims and objectives, and if implemented would signal the end of pretty much all sports and leisure uses at Hamptons. When (and if) the Islamic loan is paid off, CMS will have no need for squash and tennis. Losing the tennis courts could double the size of the available parking

As we’ve always maintained, we have no issue with the right to worship, but it cannot come at the cost of losing a sports and leisure centre, and causing noise and disturbance to the local residential amenity. And despite all the lofty claims from CMS, that the sports and leisure uses would be retained, that’s not what’s now happening at Hamptons.

Limited space at parkway

And having visited the Parkway mosque, we agree with that assessment. With a growing Muslim community, Parkway was never going to be able to cope with larger numbers.

What was wrong with the empty building next door ?

So the key question here is, if space was tight at the Parkway mosque in 2018, why didn’t CMS just buy the empty building next door (that they tried to prevent becoming a Gin Bar) ?

The Hamptons Mosque never was just an overflow facility, or a multi-faith/multi-use room so centre users could “play and pray” (a term coined by the CMS chairman Ayman Syed).

The purchase of Hamptons by CMS, is the realisation of the grand vision for an Islamic centre and mosque, you don’t need to be an Einstein to see that !

And it’s being facilitated without planning permission !

KBO