A DRIVE to raise cash for the UK’s first public Islamic Garden in High Wycombe has taken a major step forward with a cash grant.

A charity has given organisers £2,700 to produce a brochure to help attract funds for the scheme.

The garden – for which no location has been earmarked – is expected to cost £2m to £3m.

The Buckinghamshire Community Foundation handed over the cheque to organisers Mohammed Rafiq and Clare Martens last week.

He said: “We are very pleased because it will get the project going, we need to publicise it.”

He said he wanted the ‘unique’ garden to be open to people to all faiths, to symbolise ‘living side by side in harmony’.

Mr Rafiq, also a Labour member of Wycombe District Council, said: “Gardening is one of the favourite pastimes in this country, there are people interested in this.

“I think it will unite people and bring them together and provide educational facilities for further generations.”

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Cash was needed to buy land and design and build the garden, he said. The private sector is being sought as principle backers.

Mr Rafiq said sites had been looked at but declined to name them as the money had not been raised to buy them.

Bucks Free Press: islamic garden An artist's impression of the garden.