LINCOLNSHIRE – The Muslim community of Skegness in Lincolnshire, the UK, has unveiled plans to build the seaside town’s first mosque, Lincolnshire Live reported.

“Everybody would use it every day plus there are lots of holidaymakers coming to Skegness looking for a mosque,” said a member of the group behind the project, Skegness Central Mosque.

“It would be for everyone, not just the Muslim people.”

The spokesperson pointed out that the proposed Islamic center won’t only include a mosque in the secured land of Roman Bank but the building will also include a community center as well as meeting rooms.

The Muslim community needed £100,000 for the secured land and it now hopes the project will be completed by 2023. However, more funds are needed for things such as demolition costs.

Other remaining steps for the project to come true is submitting the plans for the mosque, community center and the associated facilities to East Lindsey District Council for review and approval.

Long Way of Progress

In fact, Skegness Central Mosque plans came up in 2015 with the goal of bringing a worship place for the local Muslims as well as creating a place for the community youth to be educated and an opportunity to bring the whole British community together through events and gatherings.

“The nearest existing mosque is 40 km away, which the group says makes it difficult to perform daily prayers together. At the moment, many of us attend a session at a hired-out community hall for Friday prayer,” the spokesperson of Skegness Central Mosque informed.

Skegness is a civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England, on the Lincolnshire coast of the North Sea, 69 km east of Lincoln. In the 2011 census, Skegness had a population of 19,579.

The national census found that about 97.6% of the town’s population are White, while 1% descend from Asian backgrounds, 0.4% are Black, and 0.9% are of mixed ancestries.

The town doesn’t have any mosques, while the nearest Muslim worship house is the one administered by the Islamic Association of Lincoln at Orchard Street in Lincoln city.

Lincoln is a cathedral city and the county town of Lincolnshire in the East Midlands of England. The non-metropolitan district of Lincoln had a 2012 population of 94,600. The 2011 census gave the urban area of Lincoln a population of 130,200.