More than 1,400 people have signed a petition against a planned £17.5 million Cambridge mosque.
The latest bid to stop the construction of the mosque in Mill Road comes after a protest group was criticised for a legal application to block it being built in which they claimed it could be “a front for terrorism”.
Now an online petition launched by a Cambridge resident and EDL supporter named “Phillip Cufc Jackson” has gathered 1,498 signatures on US based website causes.com.
The “Stop construction of mosque on Mill Road, Cambridge” petition claims it was launched “because us Cambridge people do not want this super mosque built on our doorstep and we have been lied to on the actual amount of opposition to this project”.
Sahid Hanif, a spokesman for the Cambridge Mosque Project, said: “I think that at the end of the day all you can do is refer back to any objections to the plans that were registered with the city council.
“I don’t know what else to say about that. But what I can say is that when we have had open days or a stall at the Mill Road Winter Fair we have had a lot of compliments about the design of the mosque.”
The petition comes after Stephen Gash, of Stop Islamisation Of Europe (SOIE), and Sareeta Webra, founder of Sikhs Against Sharia (SAS), applied for a Cambridge County Court injunction to prevent the mosque in Mill Road being built.
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The application called for a “court injunction to be served against the Muslim Academic Trust for construction of a mega-mosque” claiming the planning consultation was not conducted “lawfully”.
The case was heard on January 17 and was not successful – but the group say they are planning an appeal.
Plans for the mosque were approved by the city council in 2012. About 50 letters against the plans were received but more than 200 in support.
