Congratulations to the Greater London Authority for spending an inordinate amount of time and taxpayers’ money to draw the same conclusions on London’s wholesale markets as a study conducted five years ago (Wholesale report brings back memories).

The 144-page document can be downloaded at www.london.gov.uk, but don’t waste your time printing it. It merely confirms what we all nodded our heads at when Nicholas Saphir’s initial, wide-ranging recommendations hit the fan in the autumn of 2002.

I agreed first time around and nothing has changed in the interim period to alter my view. That nothing has changed, though, is the major problem. Instead of positive intervention to support London’s market infrastructure, we watch as half of Epping Forest is chopped down to print reports that all come to essentially the same conclusion. And with no sign of action.

There are plenty of people out there who have tried valiantly to move things along. Western International continues to row its own boat, quite rightly, and New Covent Garden is getting closer at least to setting itself an objective.

This new report talks of the same practical and political constraints that have stopped genuine advances in their tracks for so long. Until someone actually unlocks the door to a freely competitive market environment, hundreds of traders are working on top of a ticking timebomb. Now, who said that before?