Historic markets move put on hold as City of London reconsiders its plans
The City of London has paused plans to move its historic markets to a new site in Dagenham pending a review of the scheme.

The City of London operates three large wholesale markets: Smithfield meat market, New Spitalfields fruit and veg market, and Billingsgate fish market, and it has long aspired to consolidate them into a single location.
To advance those plans, the City paid £100 million for a plot of land occupied by an old power station in Dagenham Dock in 2018, and in 2021, planning permission was granted to build a large market there.
Baring a problem related to how far sheep can walk in a day, which affected a 775 year old charter, all seemed to be progressing, and a Parliamentary Bill was submitted in late 2022 to secure legal permission to move the three markets.
However, in July, a session of the City’s governing body, the Court of Common Council, excluded the public from the meeting so that it could have private discussions about the market.
The outcome of those discussions has now been made public in a small note in a committee meeting papers for next week — saying that “the Court of Common Council has confirmed the cessation of option ‘10b’ and for other options to be explored”
That basically means that the plans to move the markets to Dagenham Dock are on hold and pending a review.
So far, the City has spent around £310 million on the project, mainly for site purchase and remediation work by the end of this year. That’s not likely to be a waste though as the City will be able to sell the plot of land to another developer. It is very close to Dagenham Dock railway station and is large enough for probably a couple of thousand homes.
At the moment, though, the review is still underway to decide if they will continue the project to merge three markets at Dagenham, at another site, or leave them as they are.
Two of the markets are already outside the City itself — the fish market is in Tower Hamlets, and the fruit and veg market is in Leyton. Only the historic meat market is still within the City at its ancient Smithfields location.
The expectation was that when the meat market moved out, the Victorian buildings it currently occupies would be refurbished into a large cultural centre to sit alongside the new London Museum, which is taking over three of the market’s older vacated buildings.
While the London Museum is not affected by the changes, the future of the rest of the site remains on hold until a decision is made.
A spokesperson for the City said the scheme was being reviewed to ensure it was financially sustainable.
“The options arising out of that review, including any relevant financial considerations are currently progressing through our governance framework,” it said.
“We will provide an update on the next steps when a decision is made.”
The annual Smithfield Christmas Eve Auction is still to be confirmed for this year, but it is likely to go ahead as the plans didn’t affect it.
Large HGVs shouldn’t be coming into the very heart of London every day for purely historical reasons. Not only the air quality & congestion issues, they account for such a high proportion of pedestrian and cyclist deaths. It’s unbelivable we have become conditioned to see people being killed every week and families destroyed as just a part of everyday life.
So tragic and so preventable.
You do realise that the meat market is open at night – when most cyclists are in bed asleep?
Maybe the cyclists, should give the HGV plenty of room?
Also its living, working city. We need things like deliveries.. so we actually have the goods we need…
I’ve often been at the Christmas Eve auction. Never bought much through, as I’m only 5’3″ !!!
The markets really need to consolidate into a bigger, single site and on modern premises. NYC was in exactly the same position and over time shifted wholesale markets across lower Manhattan to a new area in the Bronx, Fulton Fish market being the last to move in 2005. The markets aren’t only bigger, they also operate 24/7.
The Dagenham site has good road and rail access, including for freight, and is quickly accessible from booming port at London Gateway.
“the fish market is in Tower Hamlets, and the fruit and veg market is in Leyton.”
The Fish Market is in Poplar (in LB Tower Hamlets) and the fruit and veg market is in Leyton (in LB Waltham Forest).
Havering Council invoking this ancient law about no markets within 6 2/3 miles of theirs is interesting: What is exactly is a market? Clearly shops aren’t a market in the sense meant, but how is market defined such that this law can be interpreted?
This just sounds like textbook bureaucracy standing in the way of what is a very sensible idea.
The meat and fish market are dying. Restaurants increasingly buy direct and get delivered direct. Bringing fresh produce into London, to then move out of or around London, seems like an outdated business model now. This is particularly relevant for the fish industry, which moved to this model during COVID.
And is now rapidly returning to its previous model as the COVID approach is proving more costly and creating more waste.
The current fruit and veg market in Leyton is not fit for purpose. The way traffic is allowed in (presumably due to space restrictions) causes lots of problems for both cyclists and cars on the A106. It becomes a problem from about 7pm onwards (my cycle commute time). If the market is kept at this site, I think a big reorganisation is required to make the area safer, and to stop the traffic causing a nuisance.
Maybe we should just turn into into a giant cycle track, it should apparently serve no other purpose?
As a near neighbour of Smithfield I find it a remarkably benign neighbour. The daily rhythm of trucks rolling in late evening and a fleet of white vans taking the meat out in the early hours of the morning it a comforting one – like the tides. They do so on mostly empty streets. Thirty five years ago, as a resident of Spitalfields when the wholesale market there was still trading, I found it much the same there.
But the trade at the wholesale markets is, after hundreds of years, declining steadily. Supermarkets, distributors, dark kitchens, even restaurants are increasingly buying direct. Nine Elms (ex Covent Garden) market has reduced its footprint by 50% in recent redevelopment. I regret that, since it makes traceability of food supplies less transparent when the market authorities are designed out of the system.
Only the City of London Corporation has the loose cash to spend such sums upfront, before it has a settled strategy.
I live near NCGM and it’s simply not true to say that the site footprint was reduced in response to a decline in trade.
The redevelopment of the market is a long-standing plan dating back nearly 20 years. The objective was always to increase the market’s density so that the redevelopment of market facilities to a modern standard could be funded by land disposals.
Key to this was build additional multi-storey parking to reduce the high proportion of the site that was usually occupied by parked vehicles, and to replace the old single storey flower market building with a high density one. Also, by reducing the overall extent of the site and putting the new entrance next to the expanded multi-storey car park, the space needed for circulating vehicles was reduced.
Thanks for this interesting news. Just to say I have donated to the website because I appreciate how you keep us up to date on all kinds of things which I would otherwise miss.
It might be that homes are a better option, it will certainly take a bit of pressure off other areas of London which are struggling to find sites for homes.