Planners set to reject worship application

For the past 18 months about 10 people a day – and more on Fridays – have made their way to 108 Park Grove to pray in the front room.

The group is believed to be a breakaway faction from the main mosque at nearby Pearson Park.

The applicants want to run classes for children and teach Islamic studies and the Bengali language.

Planning officers are recommending refusal at next week's planning committee meeting – saying prayers beginning as early as 3am in the summer would have an "unacceptable effect" on neighbours and increase competition for limited parking places.

They state: "The proposed use would result in an increase in activity and noise disturbance at the site from the coming and going of people, movement within the property and vehicle movement."

Two previous applications have been refused, most recently in June. Enforcement action by the council, which could use legal proceedings to stop the house being used a mosque, has been suspended pending the outcome of the third planning application.

Meanwhile plans to double the size of a Hull mosque in the city's oldest park will be decided in December at the earliest.

Worshippers at the Jame Masjid and Madrasah in Pearson Park say they need to expand as they have run out of room.

They want to build extensions to the side and front of the Victorian villa overlooking the park to include room for as many as 700 worshippers and install facilities for ritual ablutions.

Neighbours say the building would "engulf and take over" a tranquil corner of the city.