Plans to turn a disused former rugby clubhouse in Leicester into a mosque have been given the green light.<\/p>\n
Members of Leicester City Council’s planning committee approved a proposal to convert the pavilion in Knighton Lane East, in Aylestone, into a place of worship at a meeting on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The building was formerly used by Old Aylestonians Rugby Football Club but has been empty for about eight years.<\/p>\n
Some residents in the area told councillors they had concerns about traffic safety should the building be brought back into use. <\/p>\n
However, highways officials at the city council said the site had sufficient parking and that the proposal was acceptable.<\/p>\n
Applicant Dr Louay Al-Alousi, who will be the imam at the new mosque, said officials would look to manage traffic and that many worshipers would walk or cycle to prayers rather than drive.<\/p>\n
He said the mosque, which will also have educational facilities, would likely have a maximum of 100 people on site at any time.<\/p>\n
He said he hoped it would be ready to open by February 2026.<\/p>\n
The council received 163 representations in support of the plan and 38 objections.<\/p>\n
Among the objections were concerns about potential noise.<\/p>\n
A report prepared for the committee said there was “no intention” for an externally amplified call to prayer, and planning officers proposed a condition that no formally scheduled events could take place outside the building.<\/p>\n
Council officers had also proposed a condition that the site could only be used between 07:00 and 23:00, with opening hours extended to 00:30 during Ramadan. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plans to turn a disused former rugby clubhouse in Leicester into a mosque have been given the green…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-250387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}