TOI Correspondent from London: British Hindus in Cambridgeshire have lost their bid to have their first place of worship in the county after the local council awarded a piece of faith land to a church and Muslim group in the new town of Northstowe and not to a Hindu charity.South Cambridgeshire District Council has leased 0.25 hectares of land for 999 years to Northstowe Church Network (NCN), who will pay only peppercorn rent.Hindu Samaj Northstowe (HSN), set up by local residents, also bid for the land, proposing an interfaith and wellbeing centre as well as a temple, but the council officers, who assessed the bids, scored HSN’s bid as 65% and NCN’s as 81%, so the land will go to NCN.NCN’s proposal includes having Northstowe Muslims as an anchor tenant with their own Islamic prayer room and education centre. Whilst there are many churches and mosques in Cambridgeshire, there is not one Hindu temple. Hindus have to travel two hours to Birmingham or Wembley to worship. They can’t hire such community spaces overnight, making it difficult to celebrate festivals such as Ganapati. Deities are often stuffed in carrier bags, stored in garages, and many have got damaged as they get moved around from venue to venue.Aparna Nigam-Saxena, chair of HSN, said: “We are very disappointed the decision did not go in our favour…we have a lot of questions about transparency and robustness of the process.” She said they were considering whether to appeal. The HSN bid got marked down for various reasons, including lack of “financial track record”, but she said they had not been aware this was an important factor. “They should have given us guidelines if they wanted to see prepared quotes from our architect.”Around 150 Hindu families who live in Northstowe have been left devastated. Eyva, 16, told TOI she has never been able to celebrate Shivratri overnight or experience “havans”.“I often see my cousins in India celebrating something and I wish I could celebrate in the same way but I can’t. My generation here is being lost as we are being left completely separate from our roots, culture and heritage.”Abhishek Srivastava, who comes from Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, said he sometimes feels he made a mistake moving to the UK as his children, aged 9 and 12, are not able to participate in Hindu festivals.Nawash, chair of Northstowe Muslims, told TOI the 200-odd Muslims in the town needed a permanent space to allow them to pray five times a day, as community spaces do not stay open that long, and that is why they applied to be an anchor tenant. Locally-rooted community and faith groups will be allowed to hire its spaces, “where activities fit the scale, setting and residential context of the site,” an NCN spokesperson said.Councillor Dr Lisa Redrup said: “Bids were assessed against a clear set of criteria available to all bidders and part of the applicant’s role was to explain the need of their project and considerations relating to specific faith practices.”
