PLANNING chiefs turned a deaf ear on pleas to allow a mosque in Blackburn to issue the Islamic call to prayer three times a day.

Blackburn with Darwen Council's planning committee had granted permission to convert the single storey building at the corner of Copperfield and Dorritt Streets into a mosque and were meeting to decide what conditions should be imposed on the scheme.

These included parking and noise restrictions as well as obscured glazing on windows facing residential properties, plus a ban on an external call to prayer.

But Labour councillor Yusuf Jan-Virmani called on other members of the committee to oppose the condition banning the call to prayer.

Instead he asked that they be allowed between noon and 6.30pm. He said the area was largely surrounded by factories, with only a handful of people living nearby.

Permission was granted for the mosque and madressa, or Muslim school, at a previous meeting of the planning committee and councillors had to decide whether to impose planning conditions the proposal will have to stick to.

Coun Jan-Virmani said: "It's not going to affect any residents.

"There are residents living there but they are Muslim and I have talked to them and they have no objection."