St John’s Church should be used (From Dudley News)

St John’s Church should be used

12:03pm Wednesday 20th June 2007 in Letters

AFTER reading the report today about St John's church at Kates Hill being used for a mosque, I would tend to agree with this thought, and it may be in agreement with the thousands of Dudley residents that were against the large mosque in Hall Street.

I was one of the thousands who was against the large mosque being built on the skyline of historical Dudley.

Although St John's Church has been a place for Christian worshippers for over 150 years, with the decline in people using the church over the last few years it has become run down and prone to vandalism.

I do think this historic building could be saved from vandals and final demolition for the "small" Muslim community in the area to use it as a mosque.

I will leave out the "community centre" because I think this was a rouse added on just to make it look as though it would be used by all of the Dudley community, we all know this would not have been the case.

So the Muslim community and Mr Ahmed should wipe their wounds and think about selling the land in Hall Street back to the council at the purchase price and purchase the church and use it for their mosque.

After saying this, the planning application should state that the original historical features would be kept and no "large" gold domes or turrets are included because St John's Church is still on the high ridge of the historical market town of Dudley.

K Slater
By email

• The editor would like to point out the letter referred to by K Slater about St John's Church being used as a mosque was a hoax and all parties referred to in the letter denied there was any truth in the claims.