Local Democracy Reporting Service.<\/a><\/p>\nThe centre says it plans to create a “vibrant community hub that benefits the whole town”.<\/p>\n
It has raised more than \u00a3300,000 and needs to raise a further \u00a3407,000 by 31 August to complete the sale, according to its fundraising page.<\/p>\n
The cinema opened in 1937, served as a gathering space during the Second World War, before part of it becoming a bingo hall in the 1970s. The cinema screens closed in 1981 and it continued to operate as a bingo hall for a number of years before finally closing and has remained empty since.<\/p>\n
On its website the Wokingham Islamic Centre describes the purchase as a “permanent home at last”, adding: “This building is the ideal fit for our growing community’s needs, offering massive open spaces that are fully adaptable for every service.”<\/p>\n
The centre plans to transform the building’s original cinema auditorium, which once accommodated up to 716 visitors, into a “spacious prayer hall accommodating their growing community”.<\/p>\n
There will also be a comprehensive Education Hub, “with dedicated classroom areas for Nazra, Tajweed, Hifz, and weekly madrasah lessons for children and weekly madrasah lessons for children and adults.”<\/p>\n
Colin Wright, the leader of Reform UK in Wokingham, welcomed the news.<\/p>\n
He said: “Hopefully it’s going to bring more people into the town and have a knock on effect on businesses in Wokingham.<\/p>\n
“It’s an eyesore. It’s been derelict for years.<\/p>\n
“It would be good to see the site back in use. <\/p>\n
“Nobody I know will have any issues with it at all.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A landmark building labelled an “eyesore” is set to become a mosque after being purchased by an Islamic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-709392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}