Barking and Dagenham Policies for Engaging with religious groups and planning for religious meeting places

Barking and Dagenham is London’s growth opportunity. We are progressing with our emerging local plan (2015 to 2030); which will unlock growth for over 35,000 homes and 10,000 jobs.

This was endorsed by an independent Growth Commission. This brief looks at a specific (but important) component of social infrastructure; religious meeting places.

The borough does not have a policy on how to engage with local religious groups and this is the first purpose of this commission. To inform this (and later parts of the brief) the Council also requires an audit of existing religious facilities and religious groups (across the borough) , an understanding of future demand for religious facilities and how this is best met.

The final part of this commission is to make recommendations for the Council’s Local Plan policy on religious meeting places . Please see the attached brief for more details. Scope of services required The commissioning team envision that this study will have five main parts: Part 1: A policy for engaging with local religious groups Part 2: A site assessment for religious meeting places and the creation of a religious meeting places database Part 3: Assessment of existing and future demand/ need for religious meeting places Part 4: Testing if supply could be met in the large regeneration sites such as Thames Road and if multi faith centres provide a potential opportunity to reduce space requirements Part 5: Recommend Local Plan policy on Religious Meeting Places The Council has expressed that the value of the contract is likely to be no less than £15,000 given the scope of services required (see brief for more details).