SAVE Smithfield Market

About

"If you go to St Bartholomew’s and then walk through Smithfield, it is like walking from one cathedral to another. You wouldn’t pull down St Bartholomew’s, nor should you pull down Smithfield.”
Alan Bennett

“Smithfield General Market is a beautiful example of Victorian Architecture.
We should be treasuring this part of our heritage. What the Paris developers did to Les Halles is remembered as an act of Vandalism. Do we really want to be remembered as the generation who did the same thing to London?”
Kristin Scott Thomas

In 2007 / 2008, Urban Space Management Founder Eric Reynolds acted as a Key Expert Witness in the enquiry to save Smithfield Meat Market from Demolition.

6 Years on and the buildings are under threat again - please help us to Save Britain’s Heritage.

Earlier this year the City of London gave permission to Henderson Global Investors for their £160 million plans to knock down part of the General Market building in Farringdon Street and build a seven-storey office block and shopping complex on the site. That decision has now been called in by communities secretary Eric Pickles and will be the subject of a public inquiry in February. If the plans by Henderson’s go ahead the unique interior will be destroyed ((areas marked in red on the image above), so we (USM ) alongside Developers Cathedral Group and Heritage Groups SAVE Britain’s Heritage and the Victorian Society, have submitted our own planning application that enables the re-launch of the buildings as a market-based destination for independent food, creative business and cultural enterprise.

USM’s Founder Eric Reynold’s has a proven history for sympathetic regeneration including Camden Lock, Spitalfields Market and Gabriel’s Wharf and is passionate about preserving London’s historic architecture. Mr Reynolds added: “We will build upon the site’s position at the heart of London, its unrivalled transport connections and Farringdon’s global reputation as a destination for creative business and British food. “The opportunity cannot be recreated in the atrium of a modern office building. The grand, top- lit Victorian market halls of the General Market building present a unique opportunity to London. Once lost they will be gone for ever.”

The Victorian Society has described the building as “perhaps the most impressive, large-scale and complete complex of market buildings in England”. A market has operated there for 800 years. The General Market was built in 1881 but has been empty since 1999. A host of celebrities, including writer Alan Bennett, have also spoken out against the plans and more than 4,500 people have signed a petition against it.

The Public Enquiry will take place between the 11th and 28th February 2014. Any public support would be welcomed.