Plans to build an Islamic school at Hoxton Park, in Sydney's south west, have been thrown into limbo, despite being approved by Liverpool Council last night.

The application was halted after three councillors lodged a recision motion later in the meeting.

Liverpool council set up an independent panel to examine community concerns about the proposal for an 800 student Islamic school in Hoxton Park.

Most of the criticisms centred on the traffic problems residents said it would create.

But the panel recommended the school be built and last night a majority of councillors voted to approve the project.

The school's spokesman Ikebal Patel from the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils says some of the opposition was based on prejudice.

"There is a movement of people within the greater Sydney area who have taken it to heart that anything that is Islamic, they would oppose."

"There has been a very rigorous process that we have gone through up until now, an overwhelming majority of councillors had voted for the school to proceed."

The New South Wales Association of Independent Schools says it seems traffic objections have become code for prejudice when it comes to approving new Islamic schools in Sydney.

The Association's executive director Doctor Geoff Newcombe says the Islamic community only wants what other faiths have.

"Our feeling is, it doesn't matter if its an Islamic school, a government school, a Catholic school as long as it satisfies planning regulations and is given the opportunity to adjust plans to satisfy if that's the case," he said.

"It seems more than a coincidence that each time an Islamic school applies to set up, there are objections about traffic congestion.'

The motion to reverse the school's approval will go before the council at the end of the month.

16th June 2009

Source: ABC News