New law to enable Smithfield and Billingsgate repurposing proposed

The sites where Smithfield and Billingsgate markets are operated are run by the City of London Corporation, the local authority whose jurisdiction spans ‘the square mile’ at the heart of London’s financial centre.

City of London Corporation had been exploring the potential to move the meat and fish markets from the Smithfield and Billingsgate sites to a new co-located site at Dagenham Dock, but on Tuesday it confirmed it had ended its interest in that proposal owing to rising project costs making the move “unaffordable”. It said the decision “reflects a careful balance between respecting the history of Smithfield and Billingsgate markets and managing resources for this project responsibly”.

In tandem, City of London Corporation intends to move ahead with plans to stop operating the meat and fish markets from the Smithfield and Billingsgate sites, though it has said existing operations will continue until at least 2028 and that it will provide financial compensation to traders who would have to move premises.

The meat and fish markets are effectively fixed to the current sites at Smithfield and Billingsgate by a raft of existing UK local legislation, which imposes certain rights, restrictions and obligations as to the use of the land. On Wednesday, a parliamentary agent acting on behalf of a chief officer of the City of London Corporation deposited a private bill before the UK parliament seeking to change that.

The City of London (Markets) Bill provides for the City of London Corporation’s responsibilities to operate meat and fish markets at the two sites to end. It provides for the notification of such an end date to tenants and for rights of compensation for those tenants to be built into tenancy termination.

As a private bill, which is not the same as a private member’s bill, the draft legislation is subject to a unique parliamentary process which will enable those with private and local interests that are specially and directly affected by the bill, such as market traders impacted and bodies with an interest in heritage and conservation, to petition against the bill. Unless petitioners’ right to be heard on their petition is successfully challenged by the City of London Corporation, as promoter of the bill, petitioners are able to appear before and make representations to specially convened parliamentary select committees.

Robbie Owen, a parliamentary agent and planning law expert at Pinsent Masons, said: “The private bill process has a tendency to bring issues out of the local woodwork and therefore time will tell how controversial this measure is and what sort of a passage through parliament the bill will have. At best, the bill will take until next summer to pass, but this could easily be up to two years, or even longer, if there are petitions raising complex issues that need to be heard.”