The Hindu community will be forced to find a new place of worship
Peterborough City Council’s ruling cabinet has agreed to sell the New England Complex, home of the city’s Bharat Hindu Samaj Hindu temple.
At its monthly Cabinet meeting last night (February 10), councillors agreed to authorise the disposal of the Council’s freehold interest in the much-used Millfield complex.
The council believes the sale will help its attempts to balance its budget. However, the proposed sale of the property will mean the Hindu community who have used the temple for 40 years will be forced to find a new place of worship.
The meeting was attended by supporters of Bharat Hindu Samaj, which itself tabled a bid of £1.3m as part of the bidding process.
Campaigners were hopeful the initial decision to sell the complex made by Cabinet last December would be reversed following fervent appeals by city councillors and the Hindu community. Indeed, the reason this item had been sent back to Cabinet for re-evaluation was due to campaigners convincing the council’s Sustainable Future Scrutiny Committee to call in that initial decision last month.
Vishal Vichare was one of those supporters who attended. He asked the Cabinet: “Why has the council relied solely on financial value when it will have been entitled to balance social value against financial value?”
Councillor Mohammed Jamil (Lab), the Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Governance, replied directly: “As part of the bidding process, social value was taken into account and officers from our property board came up with the decision that they did in the manner that they did.”
John Howard, the Conservative councillor for Hargate & Hempsted was invited to address the Cabinet on the matter on behalf of his party leader, Cllr Wayne Fitzgerald.
Cllr Howard sought assurance from Cabinet that the needs of the 13,500 Hindus from across Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Lincolnshire who currently use the New England Complex would be accommodated before the new owners took over the complex: “It would be really unforgivable to ask one body to remove another body when it’s a long-standing tenant,” he said, adding “We have a moral obligation, I feel, to make sure that move happens first.”
When eventually asked for a show of hands, the Cabinet agreed to the recommendation to authorise the disposal of the Council’s freehold interest in the New England Complex “with the benefit of the additional and original detail to the preferred bidder”, subject to “appropriate transitional provisions for existing tenants.”
At this point, supporters of Bharat Hindu Samaj left the council’s Sand Martin House HQ, en-masse.
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service following the meeting’s conclusion, Cllr Jamil said: “I fully understand their disappointment,” he said,”but let’s turn this disappointment into something where we can work together.
“The council has offered its services to working with the [Hindu] community to find another building. We will work with them and I’m sure we will be able to accommodate them.”