In 2015, the London Museum, part of the Barbican complex, revealed plans to move to the General Market Building at the nearby Smithfield site. It claimed that the current site was difficult for visitors to find and that by expanding, from 17,000 square metres to 27,000, a greater proportion of the Museum’s collection could be placed on display.

The new museum, one of the biggest and most complex museum developments in Europe, has had the public launch of its first phase of development put back from 2022 to 2026 because of a dispute with Smithfield traders.

In the second stage, the £227m museum will take over the adjacent Poultry Market (below) which is occupied by working traders, some of whom have family links with the meat market going back generations.

One trader who asked not to be named told a Financial Times journalist: “It’s a wonderful place for us to be. People come and visit. We’re in the right place — in the middle of everything.”

The City of London Corporation, the ancient local authority of the Square Mile, is landlord of the disputed venue authority and is backing the museum move with funding of nearly £200mn. It is asking the traders, its tenants on the site, to join the two other big London markets — Billingsgate and New Spitalfields — in a new facility 14 miles to the east at Dagenham Docks – regardless of the extra carbon emissions caused by driving along the city’s congested roads and out to the new premises.

The Smithfields wholesalers, skilled at striking a bargain, are unhappy with the terms of the deal offered to them. And since the market’s role is protected by royal charter, moving it requires an act of parliament.

But will those with the deepest pockets and political clout win – yet again?

 

 

 

 

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