Complex conversion

Clitheroe's Muslims finally have the go-ahead for a mosque. But the plan to use a former Methodist chapel has uncovered racial tensions that the far right looks set to capitalise on.

When L S Lowry painted A Street in Clitheroe 50 years ago, he could never have imagined the controversy that decades later would surround that street in Lancashire. The red fire station in the middle of the painting surrounded by his distinctive "matchstalk men and matchstalk cats and dogs", in the words of the famous song, has now become a fish and chip shop. But it is the future of the Methodist chapel that can be seen on the right of the painting that is causing divisions in the market town.

At the end of last year, and after a long and bitter battle, Conservative-controlled Ribble Valley borough council finally gave the go-ahead for the former chapel to be turned into a mosque. As the local Muslim community seeks to raise funds to finance the scheme, enter the far right, which is now seeking to exploit the political backlash at next month's local elections.

The slow decline of the Mount Zion chapel on Lowergate Street and its rebirth in a new guise is a story that is being replicated throughout Britain. There are more than 47,000 churches in the UK and at the last census almost 70% of the population claimed to be Christians, but fewer than one in 10 are regular churchgoers and the latest figures from Christian Research show that in a few decades practising Muslims will outnumber practising Christians.

Of course, the decline in practice is having an effect on places of worship. More than 1,700 Church of England churches have been declared formally redundant since 1969. Their new uses include concert halls, apartments, cafes and pizza restaurants. This roll call includes another former Methodist chapel in Clitheroe, just 100 yards away from Mount Zion, which is now the Emporium wine bar and brasserie.

Yet it seems that converting a chapel into a place of worship for another faith is a step too far. Since closing its doors to the faithful in 1940, Mount Zion has been home to a munitions store, a metal box factory and a garment-making factory, but when the idea to turn the building into a mosque was first mooted, all hell broke loose. The local paper, the Clitheroe Advertiser and Times, was inundated with letters. Two weeks before the planning committee heard the application, the editor refused to accept any more letters citing "legal issues over content, the length of letters and restrictions on space".

Catch-22 situation

On the day of the vote, more than 150 people attended the council chamber. The chair of the planning committee, Richard Sherras, summed up the council's dilemma: "We are in a catch-22 situation: we can approve the application and be accused of ignoring the wishes of the majority of the public, or we can refuse the application and be branded racist," he told the committee.

The objections of more than 900 people were not enough to dissuade the council and it chose the former option. A further 224 people signed and wrote letters that were deemed so racist by the council that they could not be made public.

The council's decision marked the successful culmination of a 30-year campaign by the town's Medina Islamic Education Centre (MIEC) to gain permission for a mosque. A Muslim community, now numbering more than 300 people (of a population of some 15,000), has been established in the town since 1960s, but Muslims have to travel to at least 10 miles to a mosque, at Burnley or Blackburn. Three previous requests to build a mosque had been turned down.

In the past five years, the MIEC has experienced both racist abuse and intimidation. Its windows have been broken so frequently they are now permanently boarded up and the centre has twice been firebombed. The attacks prompted the centre to adopt the slogan: "Building bridges, burning prejudices".

In his painting, Lowry added pinnacles to the chapel, but the planning application does not include plans to change the external appearance of the former chapel by adding domes or minarets. Nor will there be a call to prayer. Perhaps most importantly, the plan incorporates a community partnership centre where Muslims and non-Muslims can mix and learn about each other's faiths and traditions. This would make the mosque one of the first in the country to incorporate a multi-faith facility. "We want people to come in and find out what we do," explains the MIEC's secretary, Sheraz Arshad. "It's all about breaking down barriers."

The proposal for the mosque has found some supporters in the town, including the last secretary of the Mount Zion Methodist chapel, Fred Braithwaite. Now a sprightly 87, Braithwaite was the last person to close its doors as a chapel back in 1940. He maintains that "the council made the right decision in the end". It is a view echoed by Stuart Burgess, former president of the Methodist Church of Great Britain, and chair of the Commission for Rural Communities. "I believe that rural market towns like Clitheroe need to move with the times and reflect the wider changes happening in our society," he says. "It's always a sad day when a Methodist chapel closes its doors but, if anything, it's a wake-up call to the whole Christian community. If you value your church use it."

High emotions

In the three months since the mosque was given planning permission emotions have continued to run high. The windows of the former chapel have been smashed on two separate occasions, despite being protected by metal grilles. Nigel Evans, the local Conservative MP, says the council has been slow to educate people and tell them what the multi-faith facility is all about. To counteract this he plans to hold his surgeries there.

In Clitheroe itself, opinions on the mosque are mixed. Of a dozen people I speak to, six are very strongly against the mosque, four are uncertain or won't say and two are in support. Sherras and Arshad agree that this broadly reflects the division of opinion in the town. Caroline, who does not want to give her full name, is in her late 20s. She says: "I'm not racist but I don't think they should have given it permission. It will lead to more Muslims coming to live here and we'll end up like Blackburn." Caroline last voted Conservative, but says that this time round she will vote for the British National party (BNP).

The party, which has a long history of strong support in Clitheroe in line with the neighbouring town of Burnley, got 22% of the vote in the five wards that it contested at the last council elections, although none of its candidates were elected.

Next month, two far right candidates are standing in two wards in Clitheroe, one for the BNP and the other for the England First party.

"Of course they'll try to make an issue of the mosque," says Arshad. "But I don't think people will fall for it." Instead he hopes that the threat from the far right has genuinely diminished. Despite the negativity directed towards the Muslim community, he remains confident about the future.

"If Lowry were alive today I would invite him back when we have finished the mosque to paint a street in Clitheroe again," says Arshad. "Now some of his matchstalk men would have brown faces with beards, and women with headscarves. As a painter who celebrated the diversity of working-class people I think he would have been proud."

Guardian