Crawley Borough Council forbidden from giving notice of permission to build faith school next to mosque

During a meeting of the planning committee on Thursday, October 22, officers made it clear that, under national planning regulations, plans for a school in Broadwood Rise, Broadfield, should not be allowed.

But Labour councillors repeatedly argued against that advice, questioning officers over and over and filing a lengthy motion to approve the application.

When it was decided, by seven votes to five, that planning permission should be given, the council’s head of law and governance, Jane Cryer, stepped in.

She told the committee that she had a duty to the council as a whole to minimise litigation risk and to make sure decisions that were made were ‘both lawful and made with propriety’.

She said: “I have significant concerns that there is a risk that the decision that has just been taken will be held to be unlawful and therefore there are various steps that I have to take.”

Those steps involve speaking with the chief executive and the chief finance officer and writing a report which will be presented to the full council.

Ms Cryer added: “I also have to make sure that no step is taken to implement a decision which is potentially unlawful. That means tonight I am specifically forbidding the issue of the notice of permission.”

Plans for the school, submitted by Jamiat-Ul-Muslemeen Quwat-Ul-Islam Masjed, were first refused in 2021 for reasons including over-development, the loss of parking space, and harm to a designated area of ancient woodland.

Another attempt was deferred in June after the committee went against the recommendation to refuse the application. Officers were given time to test their reasoning but their recommendation stayed the same.

The impact on ancient woodland remained the top talking point, with officers explaining that, under the recently revised National Planning Policy Framework, such an area is classed as ‘irreplaceable habitat’ and should not be harmed unless there were ‘exceptional circumstances’. A private school with no state-funding and no state support does not fall into that category.