A ‘mega mosque’ is being built in central London that will ban alcohol and music from the area, including the theatre district.
This is not true. Plans for a prayer space and community centre with a capacity of 390 worshippers have been approved. Private property owners cannot introduce restrictions in public spaces.
Posts circulating online falsely claim a “mega mosque” is being built in central London and that, once operational, it will ban alcohol and music in the area.
Posts on both X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook say: “Mega Mosque - Foreign Jihadis are now proclaiming London as a Muslim city. Here one boasts about the Mega Mosque being built in Central London. Once operational, they will ban all alcohol, music from the vicinity, including the theatre district.”
Multiple posts have also shared footage of a man pointing to the London Pavillion in Piccadilly Circus in central London, which is covered by a construction sheet. The man reportedly says in Urdu that the building has been bought to construct a mosque, while overlaid text says: “A Pakistani Businessman buy this building and make it Mosque [sic]”.
While plans for a mosque in part of the London Trocadero complex, which includes the London Pavillion, have been approved, there’s no evidence of plans to ban either alcohol or music in the surrounding areas.
Misinformation like this can cause people to have beliefs about individuals or communities based on inaccurate information. Full Fact has written about other false claims relating to mosques, including that Poland no longer allows mosques to be built, a photo shows Covid lockdown measures being broken outside a mosque, and that 423 mosques have opened in London while 500 churches closed.
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Westminster City Council approved plans in June 2023 for a “place of worship and community centre” with a capacity for up to 390 worshippers in a unit within the London Trocadero complex.
The planning applications sub-committee report says the centre will involve a “main community hall and prayer space at lower basement level for 250 workshippers and a mezzanine floor at upper basement level which will allow for up to 140 worshippers”. The space was previously used as a cinema but has been vacant since 2006.
The Aziz Foundation, which offers grants and scholarships programmes to support the Muslim community, is the organisation behind these plans.
The foundation’s website says the Piccadilly Prayer Space and Community Centre will occupy “less than 1.5%” of the Trocadero building, which also includes a game show experience and a 740-room luxury hotel with a planned rooftop bar.
The Aziz Foundation goes on to say that while the centre is “intended to serve Muslim men and women”, it will also “champion and represent community cohesion and interfaith solidarity through a contemplation/meditation/ space and seminar room available for use by the local community”.
The foundation initially applied for a prayer space with a capacity of 1,000 people in February 2020 but withdrew the application amid public objections, including that it would be inappropriate to have a prayer space in an area famous for bars and nightlife. According to the sub-committee report for this application, it had been recommended for refusal on the grounds of its “impact on the highway, increase in crime and inadequate means of escape.”
Moreover, the report for the approved plans said a place of worship is “considered compatible with the character and function of the area”, and listed numerous places of worship for different faiths in Soho, including the French Church of Notre-Dame and the Radha-Krishna Temple.
It also said the Trocadero complex falls outside the Soho Special Policy Area, which protects Soho’s unique character and function under London’s 2019-2040 City Plan.
The planned prayer space will not be the largest mosque in the area either, by capacity. The Muslim World League London Office (MWLLO) mosque, which is located nearby, has a larger congregation with numbers reported to be around 800 people attending on Fridays.
Full Fact could not find any evidence of plans to ban music and alcohol from the vicinity or wider “theatre district”.
The founder of the Aziz Foundation, Asif Aziz, also founded Criterion Capital, which owns the whole Trocadero complex, including the planned rooftop bar, as well as the Criterion Building opposite, which also contains restaurants serving alcohol.
A spokesperson for the Aziz Foundation told Full Fact that “Mr Aziz has no intention of turning the Trocadero building in Piccadilly Circus into a mega mosque or banning music and alcohol. These rumours are baseless and false.”
There are no references to either alcohol or music in the approved plans. References to music in the sub-committee report relate to a supporting acoustic report that assessed issues of “noise associated with the use of the site as a prayer centre.”
It says: “With regard to noise breakout, the applicant contends that the proposed use would be relatively quiet, with no amplified music and low levels of internal noise”, and that “an external call to prayer is not proposed.”
Moreover, only local councils can restrict activities including alcohol and music from public spaces, not private property owners.
Head of property litigation at the law firm Forsters LLP, Ben Barrison, told fact checkers at Reuters that the control of property owners is limited to their premises and does not extend to adjacent public spaces.
Local councils are able to restrict certain activities “to help prevent anti-social behaviour” under Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs). These cannot restrict alcohol from licensed premises.
London Trocadero falls within in the City of Westminster’s Controlled Drinking Zone, which means it is an “offence for anyone who, without reasonable excuse, fails to surrender any alcohol in their possession when asked to do so by a police officer, police community support officer or authorised person from the council.”
Playing music from a vehicle between midnight and 6am is also restricted in this area under the “Nuisance from vehicles” PSPO, but there are no other wider restrictions on music in the vicinity as there are elsewhere in London, such as White City.
Image courtesy of Christine Matthews
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because private property owners cannot introduce restrictions in public spaces and the man behind the plans, Asif Aziz, owns a hotel in the same building that will feature a bar.
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