New Hindu temple to be built in Milton Keynes

Rupanjana Dutta Wednesday 27th March 2019 14:14 EDT
 

SHITAL (Shirdi Saibaba Temple Association of London), a UK registered charity from Wembley, has applied for a planning permission to build a community hall and a temple in Milton Keynes, to the east of St Agnes Way, in Tattenhoe. The 0.82 acres Milton Keynes Community Foundation land, where the organisation for the first time will build a two floor building from scratch, is a partly residential area, where their land is not very far from a school and shares its wall on one side with a sports club.

The organisation plans to finish the first phase of the building by 2020. Currently they have 3 temples and 4 centres and as a part of the expansion plan, a spokesperson from SHITAL told Asian Voice exclusively, they are also planning to launch new centres in Bradford, Croydon and Oxford and a large project around 2023- to open a replica of Shirdi, the famous Indian piligrimage site in or around the M25 zone.

The objective of SHITAL on its website states is to promote spiritual knowledge for the benefit of the public in accordance with the teachings of Shree Shirdi Sai Baba. It is a platform to spread the holy messages and teachings of Shree Shirdi Sai Baba to every corner of the UK and Europe through establishing temples, and community centres, holding prayer meetings, lectures, public celebrations of religious festivals, distributing literatures on Shree Shirdi Sai Baba and assisting those in charitable needs.

The land at a discounted price acquired from the Milton Keynes Community Foundation has cost the organisation around £400,000, and the planning documents lodged with Milton Keynes Council show it may be constructed from recycled steel shipping containers, by an award winning architect. Speaking to Asian Voice, the spokesperson said, “The mission for SHITAL is not to just build temples, it is the community spirit. It aims to build something for the younger generation, to engage them with our culture. We already provide cooked food to 12-13 charities, and we want to carry on that good work.

“The community centre that we aim to build is going to be available for free tutions, cultural activities, computer lessons, promoting education- to the wider community- to anyone from any background or faith.

“This project if we get planning permission, will cost us around or over £2mn, and we will need to raise funds, but only after we have received the planning permission. We have already carried out door to door meet and greet and two indoor public consultation exercises for the plan. It delayed the project by a year, but we finally submitted our planning application on 12th March this year.”

Though parking, as expected has appeared to be an issue, but SHITAL is happy to work around the needs and timings of the community to ensure they can spread the message of love and unity as always.

Meanwhile, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, President of Universal Society of Hinduism, said that it is important to pass on Hindu spirituality, concepts and traditions to coming generations amidst so many distractions in the consumerist society and hoped that this temple would help in this direction.

Milton Keynes, one of the fastest growing centers in UK, is home to over 22 million trees/shrubs, The Peace Pagoda, public sculpture The Concrete Cows; and parks-lake-greenspaces cover about 25% of its area. Various bands were formed here and prominent people associated with it include Olympian Greg Rutherford, actor Kevin Whately. Peter Marland is Leader of Milton Keynes Council, while Michael Bracey is Chief Executive.


comments powered by Disqus



to the free, weekly Asian Voice email newsletter