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A massive new £15 million mosque in Cambridge is set to open next year, it has been announced.

The construction of the mosque in Mill Road started on September 5 last year and is expected to be completed by November, 2018, the News can exclusively reveal.

Donations have flooded in to the Cambridge Mosque Trust from thousands Muslims in Cambridge, Indonesia, Hong Kong and the US.

Details of the facilities in the mosque have also been revealed.

Tim Winter, also known as Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad, chairman of Cambridge Mosque Trust, told the News the final cost is likely to be higher than £15 million.

He said: “However, donations in kind - sound system, carpets, timber elements, etc - may push the price down again. We hope to finish the basement construction in late July, providing eighty parking spaces.

"The completion date was to have been November 2018 but it is likely that this will be put back, perhaps by a couple of months.”

A member of the Saudi royal family gave a substantial sum.

But in the wake of the terror attacks there have been calls for a debate on Wahhabism - which is practised in Saudi Arabia and seen as the ultra-conservative form of Islam - and its role in the UK.

But bosses of the Mill Road project say donations from Saudi Arabia have “no strings attached”.

Saudi Arabia has been accused of spreading the Wahhabist message through charitable donations to schools and mosques and the government is conducting an inquiry into revenue streams of extremist groups that is thought to focus on Saudi Arabia.

A donor in Qatar also gave a substantial sum and a private company in Turkey and Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs provided major funding.

Mr Winter said: “We are happy to have avoided accepting any overseas donations which have strings attached. This will be a non-denominational mosque, a spiritual place, where people of every background can come and find peace and reassurance.”

The second phase of the construction will be the roof and shell at the eco-mosque which is set to host up to 1,000 worshippers with 700 men in the main hall and a smaller section for 300 women.

Mr Winter said: “As well as being the UK’s first green mosque, our facility will also be totally welcoming to women, and we are happy to have appointed two women to serve on our board of trustees; we hope that this number will grow.”

And the mosque will be open to the public in Cambridge and designed to welcome everyone as a place for peace and calm reflection.

Mr Winter said: “We are moving to the stage at which we can plan the mosque’s activities. Our trustees are still determined that this should be a facility for every member of the community, and it has been designed to be welcoming.

“Everyone will be able to come and use the gardens, or hire the lecture space for events, or sit in the coffee house, or just enjoy the calm ambience of the prayer hall.

“At a time of mounting tensions between communities we are confident that we will be showcasing traditions of hospitality and respect, pushing back against fundamentalism and any other ideology that seeks to damage the unity of the human family.”

Laying the foundations and building an underground car park, is expected to be completed by June.

Mr Winter said women have been active in the design and fundraising including a female Cambridge student, Baraka Khan, who was diagnosed with cancer, raised £213,000 for the mosque before she died.

The mosque is set to be equipped with a soundproof mother-and-toddler area and a women’s treatment room for natural therapies.

It could feature an Islamic funeral facility, a cafe, a Qur’an school for children equipped with digital technology and garden open to residents.

There will be a solar-powered generator on the roof, water recycling facilities, green energy use, heat pumps and passive ventilation.