The City of London Corporation has confirmed that an area within the Royal Docks enterprise zone in Newham has been identified as “a preferred new site” for the Smithfield and Billingsgate wholesale markets, which are to leave their current locations as part of severing their historic links with the City.
The chosen spot is Albert Island, a 25-acre space owned by the Greater London Authority at the eastern end of the Albert Dock, next to the Thames which has been seeking viable regeneration projects for several years. It follows the collapse of an earlier City plan to move the markets to Dagenham Dock.
It was reported by MyLondon at the start of October that a potential new site in the Albert Dock area was the “preferred location” for a new combined space for market traders.
The City undertook to help the meat and fish traders find a new site within the M25 as part of a deal that will see them vacate their current homes by 2028. It says “conversations will start shortly with potential delivery partners” for creating the buildings and facilities required to incorporate both markets within the available space. The traders have given their backing to a parliamentary Private Bill which needs to become law in order for the change of use of their current sites can go ahead.
The Albert Island site is significantly smaller than the 42-acre space at Dagenham Dock, a former power station site which the City bought in December 2018 with the specific aim of consolidating Smithfield, Billingsgate and the New Spitalfields fruit and vegetable markets there.
In November 2022, it announced that it had “approved plans for a major regeneration programme” that would see nearly £1 billion invested in the Barking & Dagenham borough and ensure “resilience in the food supply of London and the south east”.
However, the Dagenham Dock project was abandoned a year ago, with the City saying it had become too expensive and announcing its intention to close the two markets, which had been in its ownership for centuries.
An in-depth report by On London, published in October, shed light on some of the negotiations that went on within the City’s Guildhall headquarters and between the City and the market traders. Critics argue that the failure to make the Dagenham Dock scheme work reflect badly on the Corporation’s decision-making processes and reveal a lack of commitment to the scheme in an outer London setting that would not immediately generate large financial returns.
The City maintains that freeing up the market sites will enable 4,000 homes to be built on the Billingsgate site in Poplar, Tower Hamlets, and for the 19th Century Smithfield meat market in Farringdon, just inside the Square Mile, to form part of an emerging cultural quarter. Another Smithfield Market building is to be the new home of the London Museum formerly the Museum of London – which is due to open towards the end of next year.
Photograph from Vistry Group.
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