Mosques and temples could be built alongside churches in the government's four South-east housing growth areas, in an effort to promote racial diversity.
Ted Cantle, chair of the government's community cohesion panel, has been in discussions with the ODPM's Building Sustainable Communities Unit over ways to ensure the areas do not become dominated by white, middle-class people.

He will be pressing councils and others involved in the growth areas – the Thames Gateway, Ashford, Milton Keynes and the London-Stansted-Cambridge corridor – to consider using infrastructure to boost community cohesion at an early stage.

He said: "We are working with government to make sure they are integrated. There's some evidence that new housing on the outskirts of towns is largely occupied by whites moving out, leaving black and minority-ethnic people in more segregated communities.

"It's quite tricky because it's about putting the infrastructure in right from the start. We can look at things like mosques and temples, but will that be enough to make people feel they have a stake?"

The 2001 census showed that 45% of the UK's minority-ethnic people live in London, making up 29% of the capital's population. But in Ashford, only 2% of the population is non-white; in Milton Keynes, the figure is 9%.

Councillor Isobel Wilson, leader of Milton Keynes council, and Tony McBrearty, acting chief executive of the Thames Gateway London Partnership, both said a wide range of cultural facilities would be in the plans for their areas.

An ODPM spokeswoman said: "We are committed to making new communities fully sustainable."

Cantle, who is also an assistant director of local government best practice group the Improvement and Development Agency, went on to say that councils were not fulfilling their obligation under the 2000 Race Relations (Amendment) Act to promote good race relations.

Source

Housing Today