A DECISION to allow a former library that was targeted with anti-Muslim vandalism to be used as a mosque has been put on hold.

The disused grade II listed Carnegie Library, in Abergavenny, was set to be brought back into use by the Monmouthshire Muslim Community Association as a community centre and the county’s first mosque.

Though Monmouthshire County Council’s cabinet had agreed it would offer the association a 30-year lease on the building that was last used as a pupil referral unit that decision will now have to go back to the cabinet which has 10 working days to meet and reconsider.

A council committee meeting, called after three opposition councillors objected, could have accepted the decision but in a tied vote agreed to refer it back to the cabinet on the casting vote of scrutiny chair Jane Lucas.

Some 48 hours before Wednesday’s pre-arranged meeting the building, on the edge of the town centre, was

© South Wales Argus