Should you drive through the southern part of the Lake District this summer, you might end up in the historic market town of Dalton-in-Furness.
Just four miles north of Barrow, this ‘charming’ town (as it is described on the Lake District’s official tourist website) is best known as the birthplace of celebrated 18th-century painter George Romney. Nowadays visitors to Dalton’s slated streets can enjoy its 14th-century castle as well as the cafes, pubs and chocolate shops lining its main street, Market Street.
Yet tensions in this quaint town have flared this summer over plans to build a three-storey ‘mega-mosque’ on its outskirts – the first such centre in the Lake District.
Last month hundreds of protesters gathered at the site of the proposed South Lakes Islamic Centre (SLIC), claiming that it will fuel immigration to the area and serve less than 0.2 per cent of the local population. They faced off against counter-protesters, who condemned critics of the project as ‘racist’ and ‘anti-migrant’.
With further demonstrations planned, the £2.5million project is set to become an increasingly poisonous issue in the weeks and months ahead – and the strong feelings in the community are evident.
‘There is a tiny Muslim population in the area, the mosque isn’t needed and a lot of people in the area don’t want it,’ says Kelsie Dixon, a 37-year-old mum with two daughters. ‘We are very concerned parents. We are not racist, we are not far-Right, we are just concerned mums of little girls.’
Her fears echo those of the mothers who led protests outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, which was housing an asylum seeker charged with sexually assaulting a schoolgirl last month.
With other demonstrations exploding outside migrant accommodation in the Norfolk town of Diss, Newcastle and Islington, the seat of north London’s liberal elite, it raises the question: Will this quiet corner of the Lake District become the biggest explosion yet in tinderbox Britain?
Here in Dalton, this fractious story begins long before this summer.
Back in 2021, a group of Muslim doctors at Furness General Hospital in neighbouring Barrow drew up plans for a mosque in the area, given that the closest was 48 miles away in Lancaster.
Setting up the SLIC charity to finance the project, they planned to build a centre that would serve up to 50 medics at the hospital and their families, as well as ‘professionals, business communities and other trade workers who need basic prayer, burial, teaching and community facilities’.
A spokesman for the group previously said they ‘ideally wanted [the mosque] to be close’ to the hospital, but they were unable to ‘find a suitable property/land’.
Hence, Dalton became the next best option.
That same year, census figures had showed Dalton’s population stood at 7,554. Just 11 people (0.14 per cent) described themselves as Muslim. Of the 67,407 individuals living in Barrow at the time, there were 322 Muslims (0.5 per cent).
Nonetheless, a planning application was lodged in December 2021 to build a three-storey prayer hall and community centre on a site of roughly 1,000 square metres close to Dalton Rugby Club about a mile from the town centre.
The application said the ground level of the building would serve as ‘a multi-function community hall’, while the first floor would be a ‘semi-private’ space to be ‘mostly used during specific prayer service’. The second floor was earmarked for offices, while the roof space would ‘take advantage of the amazing landscape views’ by incorporating a ‘proposed communal garden for relaxation and reflection’.
Council chiefs granted permission for the building, as well as 17 parking spaces, the following December.
Construction got under way at the start of this year – although it was quickly beset by problems.
A wave of negative feedback circulated on social media about the scale of the project. One individual posted: ‘Absolute monstrosity in the Lake District.’
Another commented: ‘Total blot on the landscape… totally unwelcome… how on Earth has this been passed in planning?’
Meanwhile, activists from hard-Right group Britain First claim it had gathered 70,000 signatures on a petition calling for the planning permission to be revoked and stood at the site with a banner reading ‘No mosque here’.
So negative was that coverage that SLIC chiefs claimed in March that construction had been ‘delayed’ because some ‘local suppliers have refused to deal with us’.
The spokesman added diplomatically: ‘It’s just the challenges we face.’
Tensions boiled over in June when protesters waving Union Flags and counter-protesters brandishing ‘Stop the far-Right’ placards faced each other at the site.
In a separate development, the leader of the Right-wing UK Independence Party, Nick Tenconi, was filmed shouting ‘traitor’ at construction workers on the site. He was also filmed telling them: ‘When an illegal who gets housed here because there’s a mosque goes on to rape and murder – the blood is on your hands.’
There were similarly heated exchanges last month when around 100 people turned up to demonstrate.
Among them was local Labour MP Michelle Scrogham, who angered those protesting against the centre when she said: ‘I am here because there’s absolutely no place for racism in Cumbria.
‘The comments that plague the social media pages constantly don’t represent the people of this area. The people of this area have always been incredibly welcoming.’
Businessman Gary Peaker, who is leading local opposition to the SLIC, claims many locals are afraid to speak out against the project because they are in State-linked employment at the NHS hospital or defence firm BAE Systems – which supplies the Royal Navy with nuclear submarines from its shipyard in Barrow. ‘I work for myself,’ he says. ‘I’m in a lucky position where I can speak my mind.
‘I was there at the protest and I was called a Nazi. I was labelled a racist.
‘I’ve got no issue with race – it’s not about race. For me, it’s about the fact that they’ve plonked a 300-capacity, three-storey building – four storeys if you include the roof terrace – at the entrance to the ancient capital of this area.
‘That should not be built there, not that monstrosity.’
The 54-year-old, who runs a motor parts centre and vape shops, adds: ‘The population in this area who will use the mosque is minimal, so why the hell is it being built here? Is it because there’s a lot more coming?
‘They should have re-purposed a building in Barrow or built one from scratch in Barrow, where most of them live.’
Yet a look at Mr Peaker’s Facebook page suggests he is hardly the ideal poster boy for anti-SLIC sentiment. Among the highly offensive images and memes he has reposted is one suggesting Muslim men engage in sex with goats.
Challenged by the Daily Mail, he dismissed the highly derogatory material as ‘dark humour’ and added: ‘What’s on my Facebook page isn’t reflective of my ideals and ideologies and what have you.
‘I’ve got black friends, I’ve got Chinese friends, I’ve got Muslim friends… I’m not interested in race, it’s how you treat our country. Dark humour is dark humour.’
However distasteful Mr Peaker’s social media activity might be, the reality is that he is far from the only Dalton resident objecting to the SLIC.
Mother-of-two Donna Hill, 43, admits to concerns about the growing influence of people who ‘don’t live by our culture, don’t live by our rules and don’t live by our ideologies’.
Another woman, preferring not to be identified, tells the Daily Mail: ‘Their beliefs are so far from what our beliefs are.
‘It’s not a peaceful religion.’
But others in Dalton are supportive of the centre. Retired police officer Gerard McLarnon, 78, who lives with his wife Sheila about 300 yards from the development, says: ‘We’re not bothered about it all.
‘We’re Catholics so we believe in religious freedom. Most of the people who will use it are doctors and nurses from the hospital, so what I’d say to these people [opposing the centre] is “Look, you don’t want it here at all and you’re anti-them, but when you go to hospital in Barrow, are you going to refuse to be treated by them?”
‘It’s so ridiculous. We have no problems with them at all.’
Even though they have lived in the area for 26 years, Mrs McLarnon describes Dalton as a ‘parochial’ community. ‘If you’re originally not from this area, you’re an “offcomer” and you always will be,’ the 77-year-old chiropodist adds.
Of the centre itself, she says: ‘It’s just a building. Nobody objected when they put commercial buildings up just along from there. It proves [to me] that it’s just racism.’
Ominously she warns: ‘I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this.’
Indeed, bosses at Westmorland and Furness Council seem to agree. They have already issued a fact sheet on the SLIC project following reports of misinformation. Their guidance shows that the building will be 10m (33ft) tall and 30m (98ft) wide – not quite ‘mega-mosque’ proportions as has been claimed. By comparison, the five-storey Baitul Futuh mosque in Morden, south London – believed to be the biggest in England – is 23m (76ft) high and can hold around 13,000 worshippers at prayer.
Council chiefs also pointed out that the development is eight miles from the Lake District National Park – despite hard-Right agitators insisting it was within the park’s boundaries. Other myths debunked by the council included a claim that planning permission for a children’s home on the site had previously been turned down.
But, still, the rumours continue to swirl. Among the claims currently circulating is that the new centre will cater for 800 migrants who will allegedly be housed in 170 properties in Barrow. ‘These are just rumours going around,’ says one individual opposed to the centre, ‘but there’s always an element of truth in any rumour’. The Daily Mail was unable to find any evidence for the claim.
Both sides have also accused the other of drafting in the bulk of their supporters from outside the village for last month’s protest. But one local businesswomen who passed last month’s demonstrations tells the Daily Mail: ‘I recognised most of the people on both the pro- and anti- sides. I’m pretty sure the vast majority were local.
‘This has really become a polarising issue in the community. Neighbours are going to end up not speaking to each other because of this.’
And there are fears this story could be repeated across the nation.
Last week a YouGov survey revealed that more than half of Britons think Islam is not compatible with British values, while four in ten believe Muslim immigrants have a negative impact on the UK.
For her part, Kelsie Dixon expresses concern that practices such as child marriage and female genital mutilation still exist ‘in this day and age’ in the Muslim culture.
‘That’s my main concern,’ she says. ‘They treat women and children in their religion a lot differently than we do.
‘I’m just standing up for what I believe in.’
