When a planning application for the redevelopment of New Covent Garden Market was submitted in the spring of 2014, there were fears that the market’s wholesalers would leave en masse. The market’s tenants’ association launched a robust campaign objecting to certain aspects of the plans, which coincided with the departure of eight tenants. But fortunately for the market, that is where the exodus ended.
Since then, the main sticking points in consultations between tenants and the Covent Garden Market Authority (CGMA), which is managing the project, have centred on parking, splitting wholesalers between different halls, and a reduction in the size of the flower market. In particular, some operators have raised concerns that their businesses could lose customers during the reconstruction process, which began last summer and is due for completion in 2022.
Mushroom wholesaler Bruce White, whose family has been trading at the market for around 150 years, says: “I think that when the redevelopment is finished, the market could be brilliant, but it’s the disruption and whether we’re going to survive that is the problem. If customers find it too difficult to come to New Covent Garden, they will go to Spitalfields or Western International instead. Then they might not come back.”
Other traders are more positive about the renovations, however. Marc Osborne from Thorogood & Sons adds: “I think it’ll be fantastic for us. I know there’s been a lot of negativity but, personally, I’m a long way from retirement so this is my future, and my family’s future. I think it will give us a fresh approach.” The revamped site will be more public-facing and will feature six distinct zones including a new food hub and a food and floristry academy called The Garden Heart.
While works are under way, CGMA is trying to minimise the impact they will have on wholesalers. Its strategy is to reconstruct the site gradually, ensuring that fresh produce traders only have to move once and are never left without a base. Just three of the market’s fruit and veg tenants will have to move into an interim distribution unit, according to the authority, but this will not happen until late 2017.
“Part of the reason why the building process will take so long – seven years in total – is to minimise disruption and make sure that businesses can trade throughout, without losing a day’s business,” says Alastair Owen, CGMA’s communications manager.
“We will build new units on a vacant piece of land, move some wholesalers into those new units, knock down the ones they have just moved from, and then build on that piece of land,” he explains. “It will be: build, move, demolish, build, move, demolish – until, gradually, construction is complete.”
Work has already begun on the new flower market and The Garden Heart, as well several other aspects of the project, including pipes and electrics work, the construction of a new entrance plaza and the installation of interim distribution units for fresh produce distributors to move into temporarily between 2017 and 2022. The next major milestones will be moving the entrance plaza – scheduled for completion this autumn – and the relocation of the flower market, which will open at the end of February, to the main entrance site.
Commenting on the progress made so far, CGMA’s Helen Evans says: “It’s the start of a seven-year process so we haven’t got anything completed yet. Most of the works being carried out at the moment are in infrastructure and enabling – making sure that the drains and the utilities are in place and installing new electrical substations. It’s all the preparatory work.”
Despite their misgivings, the market’s wholesalers will be hoping that, bit by bit, the site’s builders are laying the foundations for future success.
