Residents Kept In The Dark By CMS

Ramadan 2024 is likely to begin on March 11th 2024

So as we approach the fourth year of Ramadan being celebrated by the Chelmsford Muslim Society at the Hamptons Mosque, nothing much has changed. We are once again set for 30 days and nights of noise, disturbance, traffic, inconvenience and parking issues for local residents.

Early Evening Problems Predicted.

The Ramadan prayer timetable shows that the breaking of the fast, Ifthar, is about 6pm- 8pm each night. That means that in addition to the considerable rush hour traffic, there will be 100+ extra vehicles all fighting to get to Hamptons. Let’s not forget that there are roadworks on Baddow Road until the 15th March, and the traffic in Chelmsford can be quite bad on most routes at that time of the evening.

Your 5am alarm call

Thankfully this is a spring Ramadan, so you’ll get a lay in till 5am for most of the month, lucky you ! But of course, no one attends early prayers, it’s just the cleaners. Or will this year’s excuse be, that it’s only 10-15 worshippers.

Regardless of how many attend, the use of the venue between 11pm and 7am, that close to residential properties, is not allowed by the Night time Noise Regulations .

There are laws in place that define a maximum acceptable amount of noise during ‘night hours’ which are between 11pm and 7am. After 11pm, permitted noise levels are:

• 34 dBA (decibels adjusted) where background noise is no higher than 24dBA

• 10dBA above the level of background noise if this exceeds 24dBA

Persistent noise between the hours of 11pm and 7am could be considered as antisocial behaviour. Environmental Health Officers have the ability to issue warning notices for noise between 11pm and 7am which does not meet the statutory threshold.

The council will not investigate road noise, but any disturbance from cars entering the mosque car park, car doors slamming, or lights beaming through your windows, can be reported here :

Report a noise problem (chelmsford.gov.uk)

There is no 2nd night time prayer “tarawih” listed for the Hamptons mosque, starting at about 11.15pm, but as we all saw last year, they did take place at Hamptons. CMS of course claimed that these were “admin” staff in the building.

Eid Ul Fitr- 1oth April 2024

As we saw last year, the parking arrangements and marshalling for Eid 2023 at the Hamptons Mosque, were a complete shambles.

Thankfully Eid falls in the Easter holiday for schools, so the additional parking will be available at a local school, should CMS bother to hire it. What we saw last year was worshippers parked all over local streets, tightly packed into the Hamptons site, with the extra parking largely empty. It’s no wonder that many worshippers missed the start of the prayers.

This year we believe CMS plan to cram over 200 vehicles onto the Hamptons site.

The prayer sessions are at 8.30am and 10.30am. Expect heavy traffic, congestion, and marshals all over the roads around the Hampton Mosque.

If you are stopped or challenged by a marshal, you can just ignore them, and pull round them if it’s safe to do so. If you feel threatened or fear for your safety, call 999.

Remember what we were promised in 2020 by ayman syed

In the four years since CMS have been using Hamptons for Ramadan they’ve:

• Never issued any advance warnings of anticipated high levels of attendance,

• Never advised residents of the person in charge of parking

• Looked the other way when parking or traffic issues are reported to them.

• Fobbed off residents who complain about being inconvenienced.

KBO