I wonder if this has to do with actual growth of the faith, or consolidating in light of shrinking temple attendance, which is different from and more exclusive than church attendance . Western Europe in particular can’t be fertile proselytizing ground these days.
Oh, and my personal experience is a couple of decades out of date by now, but ExMo here. Happy to field questions. I’m no fan of the church, but I try to be somewhat even handed when discussing with folks.
The article in question points out this is more a center for international things, so one can assume that this is funded by the American branch.
Unfortunately the UK Census doesn’t split the major religions into its various sects, so it’s not that easy to judge how many Mormons are in the UK, the last number I can see is around 140,000. Which isn’t really a lot.
There’s an interesting piece on the BBC about this training centre in Preston: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64790111
