Following a meeting last week, New Covent Garden market's tenants' association has rejected the route forward proposed for the Nine Elms site by the Corporation of London.
The corporation issued a statement two months ago suggesting it should take on NCG at no cost and take the market forward as a complementary site, compared with a new composite market at Spitalfields. This was contrary to the three London composite markets concept in the Saphir review of London's wholesale markets. The Corporation statement also proposed a non-expansion plan for wholesaling at the Garden with total concentration on catering supply.
In response to this and in support of a letter in last week's Journal from the London Borough of Hounslow, Philip Emanuel, chairman of NCG tenants' association said: 'We are still fully supportive of the recommendations in Nick Saphir's review and want to stress once again that the recommendations of three composite wholesale markets in London is the route we wish to be following.
'We do not agree with or accept the corporation's view that there should be one composite market at Spitalfields, with us acting as a complementary site. We see only a positive future for New Covent Garden and while we have a very strong catering base here, we also have a strong retail base and believe that the way forward is to encourage the two.
'The Corporation is proposing it makes no investment in the future of wholesaling here, preferring merely to reinvest the profits generated by the site, and that is another view we cannot accept. NCG tenants, both in the catering and wholesale sectors, have made huge investments in the facilities at Nine Elms, putting in state-of-the-art fridges and upgrading warehouses to meet the demands of their customers and bring the market in line with health and safety legislative requirements. For the market to develop further, that investment must be continued.
'Nine Elms is vital to the food distribution network in London,' Emanuel said. 'We are in the perfect location for the catering, retail and institutional trade in the centre and on the periphery. There were claims that transporters would prefer to make just one drop, which again we strongly reject. Many lorries already visit more than one market on each delivery and none of the evidence we have suggests that this would have to change with the advent of composite markets.' He concluded: 'The members of the tenants' association executive committee recognise that changes to the food distribution chain in London are imperative to the future of all of the capital's markets and they emphasise that they are not opposed to changes benefiting the industry in total.
'But at the same time they must look to protect the interests of their tenants and their view is that the way forward lies in the recommendations of the Saphir report.'
