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.

Smithfields meat market auction 2023 (c) ianVisits

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.

Dagenham Dock markets – planned building (c) City of London

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.