Luca Poian Forms’ winning design for a mosque in Preston has been recommended for planning consent by local council officers.

The London practice won a RIBA-backed international competition in September last year and is planning an oval-shaped, three-storey building with a flat roof, including a minaret, for the rural site.

Preston’s planning committee will decide on the outline planning application at a meeting on Thursday next week. Officers said while the proposed development did not comply with the local plan policy, due to the loss of open countryside, there were “public benefits of the proposal that have been identified that would outweight the less than substantial harm to the setting of the grade II listed building, the Parish Church of St John the Baptist”.

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