PLANS to turn a disused church into a mosque have been blocked by the Church Commissioners.
St John the Evangelist, Hanley, in Stoke-on-Trent, a Grade II listed church built in 1778, was closed in 1985 when the tower was declared unsafe and the bodies were exhumed from the graveyard, before the construction of the Potteries Shopping Centre. In 2009, the diocese of Lichfield sold the building to Church Converts LLP, which had plans to convert it into a restaurant, The Sentinel newspaper reports.
While these proposals never materialised, the restrictive covenant put in place — prohibiting the use of the building as a place of worship other than as a church — still applies.
Until 2020, the building was used as an antiques shop and tearoom. Last year, the building was purchased for £140,000 by Darul Falah Mosque, which is listed as a community interest company. The mosque’s website lists Town Road — the church’s address — as its location. Last August, the Zamir Foundation, a company registered in Latvia and based in Stoke-on-Trent, submitted a planning application to Stoke-on-Trent council to change the use of the building back to a place of worship. The founder of the foundation — described on its website as a charity providing emergency aid to people in Afghanistan — Zabihullah Zamir, is also director of the Darul Falah Community Interest Company.
The application was approved this month, but 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 allow the intended use, then regardless of the planning considerations, the applicant will not be able to lawfully use the building for the purposes intended.”
This week, a spokesman at Church House said: “We support former churches being used for community purposes, but a restrictive covenant prohibits the use of the building as a place of worship other than as a church, and the Commissioners has explained this to the owner.”
A proposal dated March 2024 and published on a new 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 new life into the heart 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 establish a museum to showcase the church’s historic artefacts, including its windows.
In response to the application to change the building to a place 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 application were not considered appropriate for the public arena due to their inflammatory and indeed discriminatory nature.”
His report notes a “significant amount of public concern” about works carried out at the application site last summer, with a particular concern that “grave stones, and potentially graves, were being disturbed and damaged in the process”.
A visit by the City Council’s archaeologist found no evidence to confirm that any in situ burials had been disturbed. The church’s Facebook group includes a post rebutting claims that “individuals of the Muslim faith deliberately damaged graves and headstones” as “completely untrue. Due to the overgrown state and appearance of the site, we hired a contractor to tidy the area around the perimeter of the church and remove fly-tipped rubbish. During these clean-up efforts, several headstones were found lying flat on the ground. While some were intact, a few were discovered to be broken or damaged.
“The contractor was instructed to collect all headstones, including any broken pieces, and place them in storage at the rear of the church, as advised by the council. Intact headstones have been laid on timber strips to prevent further damage.”
It is now 52 years since the General Synod debated, for two hours, the principles concerning the use of redundant churches by non-Christian bodies, prompted by proposals by the Wakefield Diocesan Redundant Church Uses Committee to allow a redundant church — St Mary’s, Savile Town, in Dewsbury — to be used 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 instead be demolished (News, 27 October 1972).
In 2009, the Commissioners decided not to sell the redundant church of St George, Gorton, to the Society of St Pius X, concluding that it would “not be in the interests of com munity cohesion or interfaith work” (News, 27 March 2009).
This story was amended on 5 September to clarify the address provided online by Darul Falah Mosque