PLANS to show a disused church right into a mosque have been blocked by the Church Commissioners.
St John the Evangelist, Hanley, in Stoke-on-Trent, a Grade II listed church in-built 1778, was closed in 1985 when the tower was declared unsafe and the bodies were exhumed from the graveyard, before the development of the Potteries Shopping Centre. In 2009, the diocese of Lichfield sold the constructing to Church Converts LLP, which had plans to convert it right into a restaurant, The Sentinel newspaper reports.
While these proposals never materialised, the restrictive covenant put in place — prohibiting the usage of the constructing as a spot of worship apart from as a church — still applies.
Until 2020, the constructing was used as an antiques shop and tearoom. Last yr, the constructing was purchased for £140,000 by Darul Falah Mosque, which is listed as a community interest company and is situated on the identical road because the church. Last August, the Zamir Foundation, an organization registered in Latvia and based in Stoke-on-Trent, submitted a planning application to Stoke-on-Trent council to vary the usage of the constructing back to a spot of worship. The founding father of the inspiration — described on its website as a charity providing emergency aid to people in Afghanistan — Zabihullah Zamir, can be director of the Darul Falah Community Interest Company.
The application was approved this month, however the applicant had been told of the existence of the restrictive covenant, which warned: “If the C of E are unwilling to create a deed of variation to permit the intended use, then whatever the planning considerations, the applicant won’t have the opportunity to lawfully use the constructing for the needs intended.”
This week, a spokesman at Church House said: “We support former churches getting used for community purposes, but a restrictive covenant prohibits the usage of the constructing as a spot of worship apart from as a church, and the Commissioners has explained this to the owner.”
A proposal dated March 2024 and published on a latest Facebook group, “St John’s Church Hanley”, sets out plans to “revitalise St John’s Church into Darul Falah (the House of Success), a community cornerstone designed to breath latest life into the guts of Stoke-on-Trent . . . In keeping with the Church of England’s ethos, we anticipate significant social, cultural and economic enhancements.”
It speaks of an aim to “foster unity and social cohesion”, and, besides a women-only gym and education centre, lists a plan to ascertain a museum to showcase the church’s historic artefacts, including its windows.
In response to the applying to vary the constructing to a spot of worship, 63 representations were received, with 28 objecting and 34 showing support. A report by the council’s planning officer said that “some comments made on the applying weren’t considered appropriate for the general public arena attributable to their inflammatory and indeed discriminatory nature.”
His report notes a “significant amount of public concern” about works carried out at the applying site last summer, with a selected concern that “grave stones, and potentially graves, were being disturbed and damaged in the method”.
A visit by the City Council’s archaeologist found no evidence to substantiate that any in situ burials had been disturbed. The church’s Facebook group features a post rebutting claims that “individuals of the Muslim faith deliberately damaged graves and headstones” as “completely unfaithful. Due to the overgrown state and appearance of the positioning, we hired a contractor to tidy the world across the perimeter of the church and take away fly-tipped rubbish. During these clean-up efforts, several headstones were found lying flat on the bottom. While some were intact, a couple of were discovered to be broken or damaged.
“The contractor was instructed to gather all headstones, including any broken pieces, and place them in storage on the rear of the church, as advised by the council. Intact headstones have been laid on timber strips to forestall further damage.”
It is now 52 years because the General Synod debated, for 2 hours, the principles in regards to the use of redundant churches by non-Christian bodies, prompted by proposals by the Wakefield Diocesan Redundant Church Uses Committee to permit a redundant church — St Mary’s, Savile Town, in Dewsbury — for use as a mosque by the local Muslim community (News, 14 July 1972).
Eventually, the Church Commissioners ruled against the proposal, recommending that the church should as a substitute be demolished (News, 27 October 1972).
In 2009, the Commissioners decided to not sell the redundant church of St George, Gorton, to the Society of St Pius X, concluding that it might “not be within the interests of com munity cohesion or interfaith work” (News, 27 March 2009).
