The working transition of New Covent Garden Market businesses will provide the crux of the market authority’s decision to shape its future.
The Covent Garden Market Authority (CGMA) revealed it is to make a decision on who will be the private development partner on The Garden at New Covent Garden Market project by the end of the year.
The planning application to be submitted to Wandsworth Council this summer and CGMA chief executive Jan Lloyd told FPJ that the moving process which, alongside the cost to traders, has proved the most controversial element of the project, would be key to the selection process.
She said: “The traders are worried about cost and that will be up for future negotiations. The ability for a developer to offer a phased move for the traders is key to the process.”
Under the proposed plans, prepared by Foster & Partners and Neil Tomlinson Architects and displayed at the third pre-application public exhibition this week, businesses will move just once, initially into a basic unit that will then be improved upon while the previous building is torn down.
Lloyd said tenants at the 57 acre central London site had come to terms with the move and had gained a “deep acceptance that the market needs to be now looking at how its going to be redeveloped”. Five private developers are currently in the running to work on the project.
The site will also feature the Garden Heart - a new building, closest to Vauxhall interchange, a centre for new food and flowers in London. It is hoped this will be a hub of activity outside of the market but provide a base for a host of facilities supporting the market and be open to the public with exhibition space, cafes and possibly a public market.
CGMA chairman Baroness Brenda Dean told an audience of council representatives, suppliers, traders and stakeholders at the market on Thursday that the project was the second most exciting development in London, after the 2012 Olympic project.
Dean said: “The market is an institution that has been around for 8700 years in some form and will be around for a long time. The way forward is to have a complete redevelopment rather than a refurbishment or tarting it up.”
Lloyd added: “This area of London has been a virtual desert for local residents for far too long.”
The new market will have more access for customers, more loading and unloading space for traders and will ensure no work is done while exposed to the elements.
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