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London's 850-year-old food markets to close
- cjs_ac 2y ago> The decision to close the markets and offer traders compensation was made by the Corporation's Court of Common Council. > The Corporation will now have to file a Private Bill in Parliament as it seeks to absolve itself of the legal responsibility of running the markets. The Corporation in this case is the Corporation of the City of London, which is the local government authority for the City of London, which is only the part of London that is within the walls of Roman Londinium. The Parliamentary Bill may very well not pass, in which case the Corporation may be in something of a pickle.
- orra 2y agoWhy meet your legal obligations if you have a chance of deleting the obligations instead? Absolute chancers.
- labster 2y agoWhy stop there? Why not revoke the City’s charter altogether?
- philipwhiuk 2y agoThe City of London isn't legally reliant on a charter. It draws existence from 'Time Immemorial'. Specifically it exists because it existed before 1189
- zzbn00 2y agoThis is a good and subtle point of law -- The City of London is a corporation "by prescription". But while it was created by neither statue nor royal charter, I doubt the parliament could not end it if it so decided....
- surfingdino 2y agoThat's why the City has the Remembrancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Remembrancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Remembrancer taking care of the City's business in the Parliament.
- bradleyjg 2y agoThe King-in-Parliament can abrogate common law.
- philipwhiuk 2y ago> The Parliamentary Bill may very well not pass, in which case the Corporation may be in something of a pickle. I think it's highly unlikely that it would fail.
- moomin 2y agoTrue, but it would definitely be funny.
- walrus01 2y ago> the local government authority for the City of London, which is only the part of London that is within the walls of Roman Londinium Also known as the most efficient and high volume money laundering machine ever devised by man. Do a deep dive into russian oligarch money and the City of London, from reputable journalism sources, and you won't like what you find. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/03/28/how-putins-oligarchs-bought-london https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/03/28/how-putins-oli... https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/14/nearly-40-of-dirty-money-is-laundered-in-london-and-uk-crown-dependenies https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/14/nearly... https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/02/04/why-does-so-much-dodgy-russian-money-end-up-in-britain https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/02/04/...
- qingcharles 2y agoThe City of London (aka the Square Mile) is literally a world unto itself. Even the Mayor of London is not the mayor of the City of London. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London
- cjrp 2y agoSeparate police force too.
- actionfromafar 2y agoAnd in elections, corporations have a vote. Corporation votes vastly outnumber human resident votes.
- vidarh 2y agoThough they're outnumbered in large part because almost nobody lives in City of London.
- vinay427 2y agoThat seems incorrect. The mayor is the mayor of Greater London which includes the City of London, although the City also has a Lord Mayor, as London boroughs have elected or ceremonial mayors. In other words, the City has its own mayor in the sense that other parts of London have their own sub-governments, although with a few differences such as policing and city status. > The mayor is scrutinised by the London Assembly and, supported by their Mayoral Cabinet, directs the entirety of London, including the City of London (for which there is also the Lord Mayor of the City of London) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayor_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayor_of_London > In 1965 the county was abolished and replaced by Greater London, a two-tier administrative area governed by the Greater London Council, thirty-two London boroughs, and the City of London Corporation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London
- danans 2y agoFTFY > The Parliamentary Bill may very well not pass, in which case the Corporation may be in something of a pickled herring.
- hi_hi 2y agoThis makes me deeply sad. I use to live near to the market on St Johns Street, which is a direct route to the Smithfield. There was once a burst water main that serviced a nearby hospital that caused St Johns Street to be closed down as the flood uncovered bones which needed to be excavated and investigated. They eventually were identified as cattle bones which were a few hundred years old, from when the road was nothing but dirt and would have hundreds of animals pass along it on the way to the market for sale and slaughter. It's also a beautiful and historic building and site. I'm not sure what led to the decision to close it, but I can only assume it was for commercial interests of some form, and will eventually be turned into souless apartments, and the surrounding businesses, bars, pubs and nightclubs will also fall into decline.
- lmm 2y agoThe commercial interests are downstream of very real human wants and needs. London is in a housing crisis.
- interludead 2y agoIt’s hard not to feel cynical when these decisions so often seem driven by commercial interests
- paxys 2y ago> The original market first traded in Lower Thames Street in the City in 1327, before moving to its current site in Poplar, east London, in 1982. So the "850 year old" food market is actually a 42 year old market, and will likely continue to operate from a different location as it has done many times in the past.
- cjs_ac 2y agoThe market as an institution is 850 years old; the building that currently houses that institution is 42 years old. The market is not a place; it is the activity in which people engage in that place.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dgfitz 2y agoAnd no laws or legislation have been passed or proposed to close down said institution, is that accurate?
- peteri 2y agoAs far as I'm aware they do need an act of parliment to close it down. The one to create the market on the current site is an Act of Parliament (The Metropolitan Meat and Poultry Market Act of 1860) which should protect the site from becoming anything but a place to provide Meat & Poultry
- dgfitz 2y ago“It” meaning the market or the institution?
- ericjmorey 2y agoThey are in the process of absolving their legal obligation to continue operating the market.
- walterbell 2y agoNeed a City quant PhD to invent a mathematical analog of Black-Scholes [1] for pricing and trading the irreplaceable value of culturally significant physical spaces to future generations. Then City-like [2] institutions can compete financially for ongoing preservation rights, rather than a one-time chop shop auction. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black%E2%80%93Scholes_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black%E2%80%93Scholes_model [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London
- sdwr 2y ago"Preserving the irreplaceable value of ..." works great as a personal motivation or a mission statement, but terribly as an explicit rule. It's the same problem as carbon offsets - if there's a formula for converting intangible values into cold hard cash, people will exploit the definition of the intangibles to make money.
- roughly 2y agoThis is largely because we’ve built a philosophy that eschews any concept of a collective or a people or a culture or a future.
- lobsterthief 2y agoNot every country is like this
- yyuugg 2y ago[dead]
- contravariant 2y agoPeople keep forgetting that money is just a set of rules we've created for ourselves and not a goal on its own.
- walterbell 2y ago
- petesergeant 2y ago> "It means there’s no fish market for London, which would mean the populace of London would have to resort to using local fishmongers" I mean, or Tesco?
- shermantanktop 2y agoWhich many people call “Tesco’s” for some reason. I had to read your comment twice to spot the issue.
- asveikau 2y agoThere is a tendency to make store names possessive even if they aren't. I usually hear about this in the US, I can't recall a lot of UK examples, but I think we have it here.
- petesergeant 2y agoI had a chat with ChatGPT earlier who said much the same thing, but I was unconvinced by any of the examples other than Marks and Spencer(s). I think Tescos just feels nicer to say?
- timthorn 2y agoBecause the name is a contraction of T. E. Stockwell and Jack Cohen.
- surfingdino 2y agoWhat local fishmongers? Where I live in East London there are only a handful left. None exist anywhere near new residential developments.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago> "empowers traders to build a sustainable future in premises that align with their long-term business goals" After referencing my corporatese translation book, I believe this means "Traders can get fucked we have money to make."
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- vr46 2y agoSuper sad, have spent a long of time in the area from riding right through the middle of it and parking my motorbike under it, to wolfing Turkish lunches and drinking in the pubs (not on the same day, drink-driving mavens). It is a bit of anomaly in the modern London, hard to get to and surrounded by roads that aren’t really fit for purpose anymore, but it’s these incongruous spots that make things interesting. I remember the butcher on the main Farringdon Road just near the Charterhouse St junction, who was somewhat of a character, scoffing at my suggestion that he would even consider buying meat from Smithfield - literally around the corner - which confused and amused me at the same time. I note the haughty remarks of other commenters who are neither familiar with the area or the ability to read, and suggest they pay a virtual visit to the spots in question
- hi_hi 2y agoMy running route would take me through the market in the mornings, only a few hours after it had closed up. I loved the smell of meat, which others would find quite offensive. It's a lovely area, and home to one of my favourite restaurants, St Johns.
- vr46 2y agoDid you run through Buyers Walk right inside the building, or do you mean Grand Ave, the short and often slippery vehicular road that cut the building in half? Either are cool, although I like the image of you running through the actual market like Rocky Balboa in the meat locker or something
- hi_hi 2y agoYeah, Grand Ave I think, it was in the afternoons or evenings mostly, so everything was well cleaned up by then. No stopping to punch a meat carcass unfortunately :)
- piltdownman 2y agoNot only is it home to St.John's as a restaurant, it is a geographical catalyst to a whole slow-food movement based on the food-markets proximity and the usage of offal and bone marrow by the gentleman and genius, Fergus Henderson. Bourdain was a great pal and admirer, describing him as 'the most influential chef of the last two decades' https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/aug/17/st-john-restaurant-of-my-dreams-anthony-bourdain https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/aug/17/st-john...
- nothercastle 2y agoReal estate developer looking to build build flats for Chinese and Russian investors. Gotta love the grift
- refulgentis 2y agoOh no, that'd be awful...but good news, I just looked into it, no China/Russia investors! It's a real estate developer working with the people to get a bunch of units built to ease a historic shortage. Huzzah!
- forgetfreeman 2y agoThere's a billion dollar price tag being punted around and you think the resulting development is going to be aimed at and priced to reduce a housing supply shortage? Are you by chance on the market to buy a bridge?
- nothercastle 2y agoTrump tower 2.0 London Edition?
- refulgentis 2y agoI know I'm supposed to say no, but...yes I do believe it. I have a proof, too long to be contained within the margins of this page, that when supply goes up, price goes down
- forgetfreeman 2y agoGo for it. Econ 100 textbook bs about supply and demand are trivially dismissed by a casual examination of housing and rental prices in the US in gentrified areas. What happens when the real world intrudes on academic platitudes is rather straightforward: pricing for everything goes up and the folks who were struggling get pushed out. Nobody who couldn't afford housing in the market before the shift is served.
- johnzim 2y agoWhat a shame. On a few occasions my wife and I woke up at ridiculous o'clock and made our way down to Billingsgate market on the underground. We'd come back with fish and a big salmon in a black bin-bag, which I'd do a progressively less horrific job of filleting each time. Our reward would be a bacon/sausage and egg butty and a stiff cup of builder's tea. Good times
- astrosi 2y agoAgreed, one of my great pleasures during COVID when I had terrible insomnia and couldn't sleep was to cycle down to Billingsgate in the morning and eat one of the fantastic bacon and scallop rolls from the cafe in the market. Definitely going to miss the place.
- walthamstow 2y agoI had honestly made my peace with it moving to Dagenham. It makes sense for the Farringdon area, it makes sense for transport links, it even makes sense for the traders, who mostly live out that way. To close the existing markets without building a new one is cultural vandalism.
- Der_Einzige 2y ago[flagged]
- interludead 2y agoThat sounds like a proper adventure
- sandworm101 2y agoAn old tradition is to be replaced with the current hot trend: selling condos as investment assets. But land speculation and development predates everything in london.
- hnbear 2y agoStatement from the City of London Corporation which is closing them down: > Chris Hayward, policy chairman of the City of London Corporation, said the > decision represented a "positive new chapter" for the markets as it "empowers > traders to build a sustainable future in premises that align with their > long-term business goals". This is a great statement. Like firing people to free them up to find jobs that better align with their desire for employment.
- hardlianotion 2y agoWho doesn’t love corporate bullshit?
- smartbit 2y agoI love the journalist who puts these quotes at the end of the article. Great journalism.
- sosborn 2y agoJournalists take glee in letting the fools expose themselves.
- randomcarbloke 2y agothe ruling comes from up-on-high the mayor of London who does have some oversight over the city of london, and the transit of traders that utilise the market. Gotta hit those eco numbers.
- jayelbe 2y agoThe Mayor of London doesn't have any power over the City of London Corporation. They are completely separate authorities. The Corporation is essentially a unitary/borough-tier local authority, overseeing the "square mile" centre of the city, and has a council of elected councilmen. It provides housing, education, social services, street cleaning, markets etc for a small area of central London, and has existed since time immemorial. The Mayor's remit, which has only existed since the year 2000, covers the whole 600-square mile area of Greater London, and provides strategic services like transport, strategic planning, fire and rescue, and the metropolitan police. The Mayor of London wouldn't have had any involvement in this at all.
- darksfall 2y agoThe whole area is full of so many personal memories; having lived, worked, and partied in & around Smithfield Market. I live in Portugal now, but those times are so vivid. Whenever I was at the office very early, or out parting late enough, the sight of the market workers there was sobering and down to earth. To think of it not being there, then being replaced with something nondescript, is shameful. In and around is Farringdon Station, one of the original Tube stations, the bars & pubs (Ye Olde Mitre, The Hope, Fox & Anchor, Smiths of Smithfield, etc.) and clubs (including Fabric). I was working in the offices above the markets, for a nascent IT company, and believe me they weren't luxurious offices but it was exciting. Good times, and soon only memories.
- Daub 2y agoWhat the betting that they will turn in to a hive of chi-chi coffe shops, gift shops and bespoke offices, like they did to Coventry Garden and borough market. Since the early 80s London has been on a death dive, with real life London being replaced by a plastic equivalent.
- tim333 2y agoProbably but Covent Garden and Borough Market are pretty popular. My friend had a pub next to Smithfield so I used to be down there a lot but the meat market is mostly slabs of meat and associated body parts, diesel trucks and closed to the public. It seemed a little out of place in gentrified modern London.
- zephod 2y agoWe spent our first year as a startup hacking on laptops in the attic of Smithfields, along with a dozen other startups. No idea if Innovation Warehouse is still up there[1]. If you arrived at work early enough they'd still be hosing the blood off the tarmac from the early morning market. Most startups moved out to WeWork as soon as they could turn a profit. But hey, it was cheap office space in super-central London. [1] https://www.facebook.com/innovationwarehouselondon/ https://www.facebook.com/innovationwarehouselondon/
- ngcazz 2y agoGuess I better get cross out my "buy fresh meat from Smithfield at 6am" item from my bucket list soon...
- kibwen 2y agoIf you're in Boston, the open-air Haymarket operates downtown on Fridays and Saturdays, and more-or-less has been doing so continuously for 200+ years now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_(Boston) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_(Boston) Even if you're not near downtown, the prices make it worth the trip (bring cash and bags).
- teractiveodular 2y agoIt's interesting to see how cities are handling the increasing bifurcation of wholesale and retail markets. In Sydney, the current Fish Market is a grotty assemblage of small warehouses in what's now a prime waterfront location of the city that has become an unlikely tourist attraction, but still serves the wholesale market. They're building a new one right next to it that looks far nicer, leaves tourists much less at risk of getting impaled by a speeding forklift, and will keep the wholesalers around for at least some time since they've been promised fixed rents for the next X years: https://newsydneyfishmarket.insw.com/insw/new-sydney-fish-market https://newsydneyfishmarket.insw.com/insw/new-sydney-fish-ma... All other markets, though, have been shipped off to a massive complex in the industrial suburbs, designed for wholesalers with easy truck access, and with the arguable exception of Paddy's Markets (which mostly sells junk to tourists) there's not a single proper consumer retail market in the entire city. Meanwhile, over in Melbourne, there's a whole slew of them (Queen Vic, Prahran, Footscray etc) that all appear to be thriving.
- Rodeoclash 2y agoYes, although it sounds like Preston has / is / will be at risk from developers that own the land and want to build apartments. The thing about markets like this is that once they're gone, you can never get them back again. My home town, Wellington, shut down the markets at some point in the distant past and have been trying to restart them in the more recent past to little success (think a bunch of cars parked in an uncovered car park trying to sell vegetables).
- jaza 2y agoIndeed. The central Sydney locality of Haymarket is that in name only. Same for Wheat Road and The Goods Line. Wholesale fresh produce has all been in Homebush / Flemington for years now, barely accessible to anyone without a semi-trailer and the willingness to purchase a truckload. Shipping also long gone from the central spots of Walsh Bay / Barangaroo / Darling Harbour, all now relegated to Container City aka Port Botany.
- sfjailbird 2y agoIf anyone is looking for a good read, there's a great book called Arcadia, which revolves around this trend of traditional city food markets being supplanted by upscale hipster traps.
- jahewson 2y ago> Work has already begun on turning this site into a new cultural and commercial hub, which includes the new London Museum. Yes, come to the museum to learn about all this culture we used to have, such as an awesome market.
- moomin 2y agoSmithfield features quite heavily in “Great Expectations”. Dickens hated the place. He subscribed to a theory that a city needed good circulation, which meant that things that obstructed traffic were considered bad, and Smithfield was hugely stationary and snarked up everything around it. Of course, he had no concept of the circulation of money as being interesting and important to the “health” of a city, but most economists since Marx do.
- slimebot80 2y agoStill time to prevent this. Fingers crossed.
- zeristor 2y agoFarringdon station happens to be where the Thameslink line from North to South London, intersects with the East to West Elizabeth line. As the Elizabeth Line was being finished I realised that the whole area around there is going to change hugely. Mind you if that’s the case the station would need to be rebuilt. The article discusses converting the market to a social space to make the most of the new Museum of London. Am I missing something, I would have thought the new Museum of London would open as the Old one closed, not a year or so later. And how on Earth is a new market in Dagenham spec’d as costing a large fraction of a billion quid?
- mensetmanusman 2y agoLiterally living out becoming an open air museum.
- lmm 2y ago> how on Earth is a new market in Dagenham spec’d as costing a large fraction of a billion quid? Partly cost disease, partly just that even Dagenham is expensive these days.
- mensetmanusman 2y agoWhen money is all that matters, it makes sense (to first order) to push out everything that seems to lose money and is purely cultural. This is the machine winning. To second order(s) and above, erasing culture reduces the desire of folks to live and prosper in the first place.
- cjrp 2y agoIt also feels like a result of housing/property values being so high. When a block of flats can sell for £100m (and bring in council tax money), why keep markets or build libraries. It's sad.
- SilverBirch 2y agoHonestly, come around to our neck of the woods and explain to a generation of 20 year olds who grew up in semi-detatched houses that they'll never buy a house in their lifetime because we chose not to build anything because we'd rather honor the dead.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y agoThe same thing happened to Covent Garden in the 1970s - the original site was closed, a new one was opened that over time became very evidently much better suited to being a large scale wholesale fruit and vegetable market. Everybody and their uncle bitched and moaned about it, but I think there are few people today who would argue that London would be better off if Covent Garden was still the central produce market rather than the touristic hellhole it is today.
- walthamstow 2y agoBut they're not opening a new one! They're closing the current one and telling the traders to fuck off somewhere else
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y agoYo E17 my homie! Think of it as encouragement to the traders to find their own new location :)
- fractallyte 2y agoNot with the traffic congestion hell that is E17...
- walthamstow 2y agoI read in the FT this morning that rather than the traders being told to fuck off as I earlier stated, they are being paid a handsome sum to go quietly. Many of them will simply retire, one trader is quoted as saying. Sounds like the Costa del Sol and Canary Islands are about to get a large influx of cockney butchers.
- bearbin 2y agoThe New Covent Garden Market itself is currently in the middle of a multi-decade redevelopment, they've slightly reduced the footprint and sold off some land for development, and the remains (still a massive area) is being _very_ slowly converted into a more modern design - sadly not really a market where you can actually go on foot to buy things, but a co-location area for lots of wholesalers to warehouse and deliver from.
- DidYaWipe 2y agoAnother fascinating, vibrant part of a city's history destroyed and replaced with generic glossy bullshit.
- Midnight1938 2y agoSlightly amusing how a lot of stuff like this thats happening to uk is things they have done to others in the past
- tonyedgecombe 2y agoA lot of the problems we are dealing with now are definitely self inflicted.
- gadders 2y agoDefeated them militarily and conquered their country?
- optimalsolver 2y agoAs the Commonwealth made it easier for the people of those lands to immigrate into the UK, they'd now consider it worth it.
- yyuugg 2y ago[dead]
- andreygagloev 2y ago[dead]
- Tade0 2y agoThis is why I'm distrustful towards any initiatives aiming to make a city "more liveable for humans". First they entice you with a vision of a place where everything is within walking distance, then they do this.
- lbreakjai 2y agoWhat's more liveable and walking-distance than a market within walking distance from where you live? This has nothing to do with urbanism, this is purely capitalistic efficiency.
- SilverBirch 2y agoThis isn't the type of market you pop down to and buy your weekly shop, this is wholesale. It's largely where restaurants will go to to buy their meat for the day/week. Smithfields opens at midnight and closes at 7am. You can walk past at mid-day and it's just a fairly run-down part of london in the middle of other much nicer parts of London. This is nothing to do with walkable cities.
- Tade0 2y agoI'm aware of its purpose. The connection here is that restaurants are part of the appeal of walkable cities and now their life will be made harder. Net effect will of course be an increase in prices. You need places like these in a city because they shoulder a huge burden, namely logistics, which are particularly hard in densely populated areas.
- walthamstow 2y agoIf this market was in Stoke or Hull there would be a national outcry. Farage would be all over it like a rash.
- tonyedgecombe 2y agohttps://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/council-shut-market-traders-given-9576066 https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/cou... https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/walton-street-market-closed-hull-1648041 https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-new...
- masfuerte 2y agoThe landlord of the meat and fish market in Birmingham has submitted a planning application to replace it with housing. I haven't seen Farage or anyone else express much interest. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czjy81w3ev0o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czjy81w3ev0o
- gadders 2y agoI've heard there is a cafe in Billingsgate you can go to first thing in the morning and get a scallop and bacon roll for £8. I need to try it soon.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- petargyurov 2y ago> a scallop and bacon roll > £8 Bloody hell...
- gadders 2y agoLooks like it was only a fiver in 2020: https://thefoodconnoisseur.co.uk/breakfast/billingsgate-cafe-scallops-and-bacon-rolls/ https://thefoodconnoisseur.co.uk/breakfast/billingsgate-cafe... It's not Greggs prices, but I'd like to try it at least once. It looks like it closes at 8am though.
- devchix 2y agoThis thing looks amazing! The vibe of this place makes me think of all the disappearing delis all over the US, eg. Katz's https://ny.eater.com/2019/8/28/20829116/katzs-delicatessen-restaurant-review-pastrami-nyc https://ny.eater.com/2019/8/28/20829116/katzs-delicatessen-r... When the Tsukiji fish market was still open to unescorted tourists there were many of these pocket eateries, I ate in one that was the size of a large closet, guests sat elbow to elbow, you can't lean back without bumping into another person who has lined up behind you to claim your seat when you're done. Clam broth, raw fish, chased with a beer, all before 6AM.
- lambdaone 2y agoA tragic and short-sighted act of cultural vandalism for short-term profit. In other words, business as usual.
- stainablesteel 2y ago[flagged]
- jesseendahl 2y agoThis is quite the claim. Do you have any evidence that this is at all common? On the surface it sounds like a conspiracy theory tinged with racism.
- jna_sh 2y agoI’ve never seen a claim like this levelled at London, famously a place increasingly losing social housing stock for luxury housing. The only thing I can think of is this is a new twist of the complaint that a lot of London’s housing is left unoccupied because it’s Russian/Saudi vacation homes or whatever.
- black_13 2y ago[dead]
- tim333 2y agoThe NYT has a much more detailed article on this. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/28/world/europe/london-smithfield-meat-market.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/28/world/europe/london-smith... or https://archive.ph/dz5zY https://archive.ph/dz5zY Including that William (Braveheart) Wallace was hung, drawn and quartered there in 1305.
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y agoMeat Market... indeed!
- renewiltord 2y agoEntertaining. Everyone wants more housing but no one wants to give up anything for more housing. I love it! Haha, imagine making one's bed a certain way, lying in it, then complaining they didn't like it and then making it the same way the next night. Pure magic. In America, we do this by running our ports artisanally. Residents of this nation pay billions for the privilege of 50,000 manually handling containers in the old way: refined, traditional and not by soulless automation. England would do well to learn from our dedication to the past.
- kragen 2y agoAre these Smithfield and Billingsgate wet markets the last wet markets to close in the wake of the covid pandemic?
- DrBazza 2y agoThe Corporation of London own the land Billingsgate is on. They've been looking to redevelop this for over a decade since the land's value is now magnitudes more than when it was built because of Canary Wharf and the new Canary Wharf Crossrail station. It's prime real estate land, possibly the best plot in London right now. And so is Smithfield, or at least the land that Museum of London is on, and they're moving to Smithfield. For a while I expect. The whole thing is just short term profiteering over tradition and a rich history. Some things need preserving.
- golemiprague 2y ago[dead]
- slibhb 2y ago> The whole thing is just short term profiteering over tradition and a rich history. Some things need preserving. Some things do. But is this one of them? The article doesn't make a great case. And building something new here won't necessarily be short-term.
- petercooper 2y agoSmithfield absolutely is. There's a large (and surprisingly atmospheric) underground car park under it and the Farringdon Elizabeth Line station has an entrance right there now too. Smithfield is one of my favourite "drive into London and park without headaches" spots when Stratford's hotels are sold out.
- Neil44 2y agoI'm sure they'll name the new luxury apartments nice names, that nod to the former history of the site.
- mock-possum 2y ago> Welcome to Fish Market Flats, where history meets modern luxury! Nestled in the heart of the city, this iconic landmark has been reimagined into a vibrant mixed-use community that blends timeless charm with contemporary living. Once a bustling hub of maritime commerce, Fish Market Flats is now a beacon of urban sophistication, offering high-density condos designed to elevate your lifestyle. > Picture yourself waking up to stunning city views, stepping out into a thriving community of boutique shops and artisanal eateries—all just steps from your front door. With thoughtfully designed interiors, cutting-edge amenities, and the character of a bygone era lovingly preserved, Fish Market Flats is more than a place to live—it’s a lifestyle, a legacy, and the future of urban living. > Don’t miss your chance to be part of this extraordinary transformation. Fish Market Flats: Where History Finds Its New Home. Reserve your slice of history today!
- Joaomcabrita 2y agoSad. Why not revamp, renew and reinvent rather than close it down. Loads of examples of markets turned to food and culture markets both in London and other places.. Lisbon, Stockholm, etc.. and they are thriving!
- helsinkiandrew 2y agoIt’s sad for the traders being evicted but the fact is that these markets have been dwindling in importance for decades. Restaurants and shops don’t get up before dawn to go to market to see what’s fresh, they order from wholesalers online or direct from the farms and get food delivered (often with fresh veg from the same supplier) Smithfield’s in particular is better as a new home for the London museum and probably more office/retail buildings than a poorly located commercial meat market
- HenryBemis 2y ago"it's all about the money now" Newsflash: It's always been about the money. I first went to Canary Wharf in 1995, a friend bought a small house there and it was a shitty place. I visited him again in 2001 and the place had changed "a lot". I ended up living in the same area for a few years around 2017, and CW has nothing from 'that' time. Back then you could buy land/a house at a (considering today's prices) 'cheap'. Now every square meter is worth plenty of Latinum. So yeah, this part (market) could be 'repurposed for luxury offices, luxury homes, etc and whoever owns it can have a x20 return, so why not..?
- samaltmanfried 2y agoI just searched for modern images of Smithfield market, and what on earth is that ghastly awning they've bolted onto that beautiful historic (presumably Victorian) facade? For example: https://dm1igrl0afsra.cloudfront.net/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/109/shutterstock_402283486_Smithfield1_Main.jpg https://dm1igrl0afsra.cloudfront.net/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- lmm 2y agoBetween a beautiful facade and not getting rained on in London, I know which I'd pick.
- Slava_Propanei 2y ago[dead]
- SilverBirch 2y agoI walk past/through Smithfields regularly. It's... nice? Ok it's not nice, it' uniquely London but it's just a pretty run down area in the middle of much nicer areas. But the plan was never to keep it, the plan was to knock it down and tell the people who had been working there to go work in Dagenham. So in my view this is no difference. That area of London just doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a meat market anymore, and while you can preserve the buildings you can't preserve a set of businesses that look sillier and sillier by the day. At some point you have to ask what you're actually preserving, because "Smithfields Market (rebuilt in Dagenham in 2025)" isn't really that historical.
- frosting1337 2y agoExcept the article states the move to Dagenham has been "dropped".
- SilverBirch 2y agoThat's what I'm saying, if you wanted to preserve it, preserve it where it is. If you're preserving it by moving it to east london... you're not really preserving it. There are plenty of distribution centres in east london already. So it's not really a loss to give up on the Dagenham plan.
- mgaunard 2y agoWhat's the problem with Billingsgate? It's already outside the center in dodgy tower hamlets. And it's depended on by all the fine food fish restaurants, including all the sushi ones.
- cm2187 2y agoNot that dodgy. It’s right against canary wharf. All the areas immediately around canary wharf are being redeveloped into housing/office/retail buildings, the market is currently surrounded with construction sites.
- ofou 2y agoFrom the City of London wiki: In December 2012, following criticism that it was insufficiently transparent about its finances, the City of London Corporation revealed that its "City's Cash" account – an endowment fund built up over the past 800 years that it says is used "for the benefit of London as a whole"[51] – holds more than £1.3bn. As of March 2016, it had net assets of £2.3bn.[52] The fund collects money made from the corporation's property and investment earnings.[53]
- quietbritishjim 2y ago£2bn actually doesn't sound that enormous for this sort of organisation. Especially since... > Initially the Corporation had planned to move both markets as well as New Spitalfields in Leyton to a £1bn purpose-built site in Dagenham, however this was dropped earlier this month over cost concerns as the council had already spent £308m purchasing and remediating the site in Dagenham. They were going to spend half their entire endowment on this! And, regardless of whether you have the money to spare, £1bn is an absolutely colossal amount to spend on a market (even a large and very historic one). It just makes no financial sense at all.
- Animats 2y agoIt took this long? Paris closed Les Halles in 1973.[1] New York's Fulton Fish Market moved in 2005.[2] A wholesale food market is a transportation hub. It needs good road access. If you can't easily get semitrailer trucks to it, it's in the wrong place. At one time Smithfield was served by underground freight rail, but that shut down long ago. Smithfield has a setup where maybe eight semis can parallel park on the street and back up to loading docks. Hunts Point Market in New York has space for over a thousand. It's the end of an era, though. One of the last of the big public markets. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Halles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Halles [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_Fish_Market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_Fish_Market
- madaxe_again 2y agoBillingsgate already moved back in the 80’s, to a facility with modern loading bays, road access, etc., so while what you say about Smithfield is true, it isn’t for billingsgate.
- gregoriol 2y agoAnother example is this fish market in Tokyo: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/tokyo-tsukiji-fish-market-toyosu/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/tokyo-tsukiji-fish-ma...
- jl6 2y agoSo this is essentially the government ending a subsidy for small businesses?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- interludead 2y agoIt’s worrying how this could ripple through small businesses and fishmongers who rely on these markets. Where’s the sustainable alternative for them?
- seanhunter 2y agoThis is a bit misleading about Billingsgate fish market. They shut the real Billingsgate fish market next to London bridge a long time ago and moved it to canary wharf. The fact is London has changed a lot in 850 years and it probably doesn’t really make that much sense to have a wholesale meat market right in Farringdon any more, or even at all, when wholesale buyers can just order what they need direct from suppliers and have it shipped directly to them rather than gathering flies at an open market for a few hours somewhere in the middle because TRADITION.
- verisimi 2y agoBut tradition! 850 years!! Next you'll be telling me that you use that new fangled electricity for lights, rather than candles!
- nobodywillobsrv 2y ago[flagged]
- walthamstow 2y agoI suggest you read up on how London local government works. Sadiq Khan has about as much to do with this as Freddie Mercury.
- nobodywillobsrv 2y agoSadiq Khan is a frustrator/saboteour who sets the tone. His is occupying occupying real estate that could be used by someone to preserve and grow British culture instead of hating it and destroying it.
- stuaxo 2y agoThis needs a change in legislation to get through, I'm not sure why nobody has opened a petition to parliament re: this.