Defra and the Covent Garden Market Authority (CGMA) have decided to seek the right to appeal against the Court of Appeal’s decision about the face-to-face wholesaling of meat and fish at New Covent Garden.
Last month, the Court of Appeal, to the surprise of many trade observers, ruled in favour of the Corporation of London and against the 2003 decision of Lord Whitty, secretary of state for food and rural affairs, to allow the CGMA to permit face-to-face trading in meat and fish products at the Nine Elms site.
The CGMA had extended the licenses of its meat and fish trading tenants, but has been obliged to cancel that permission. Along with Defra, it will now lodge a petition with the appeals court to seek leave to appeal against the decision, which overturned two previous decisions in its favour.
It could take as long as two months before it is decided whether their request to appeal is upheld, once more delaying any meaningful restructure of London’s food wholesale sector. It is thought that the CGMA would take its action to the House of Lords should it be unsuccessful in the next phase of action.
In July 2003, Nicholas Saphir, who conducted the review of London’s wholesale markets in 2002, said that if the Corporation and the CGMA/Defra could not find a solution to their impasse “there is a good chance that London's markets will decline in significance fairly rapidly. Long-term, I believe this would lead to the slow death of markets in the capital."
Eighteen months down the line, there is still no sign of an agreement on the horizon.
