Quick update on the petition: so far over 2,500 people have signed our petition both in-person and online and it appears the Council officers are not happy. An officer recently emailed FoQM to say "we will not be able to include it [the petition] alongside the engagement event findings that happened in August as the context and questions asked are not the same..." - HANG ON, are Newham Council officers going to stop a public petition from being counted, accepted and heard?
FoQM will be holding stalls at the market and be taking signatures from the public who rely on Queen’s Market.
Due to the ongoing threats to the future of Queen’s Market, FoQM have been busy collecting signatures in-person and online. You can now sign the petition online too by clicking on the link below:
Sign the petition to safeguard Queen’s Market from current and future threats
What the petition says:
To: Newham Council and Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz
Respect and Protect Queen’s Market
GIVE US A REAL SAY IN THE FUTURE OF QUEEN’S MARKET – Traders and shoppers want to be listened to. Stop the fake consultations.
– Stop raising shop rents immediately. Give shops secure leases immediately. Reduce stall rents. High rents are pushing traders out. – No demolition of trader storage area – No demolition of our neighbours’ home, the Hamara Ghar block next door – No demolition of market shops and kiosks – Use the £5 MILLION grant for real improvement – No shrinking of market trading area – No expensive flats for sale on the market site – Mend the roof properly for LONG-TERM use – Repair the drains – Install new toilets with an attendant – Put down a long-lasting floor – Fill the empty pitches – Make parking work for shoppers and traders
Why is this important?
Queen’s Market in Upton Park, East London, is very important to us – we want the market to grow and keep going into the future. That’s why we need the Council to RESPECT AND PROTECT QUEEN’S MARKET and look after it.
We value Queen’s Market for its Low-priced food – Trusted traders – Fresh, culturally-appropriate food – Generations of experience – Unique products – 166 stall pitches – It’s our social place where communities meet and feel safe – It’s historically over 120 years old, so it’s part of our heritage – It’s an ‘Asset of Community Value’ – A great place to start small businesses.
Shoppers and traders don’t feel part of the big changes Newham is proposing for historic Queen’s Market. Sign the petition to show your support for the Market and get the Council to respect shoppers and traders and put us at the centre of talks so our unique market can be preserved and improved.
Don’t forget to share the petition online through your social media!
There’s never a quiet day when those in power keep trying to pull the rug from under our feet.
Recently, Green Party Deputy Mayor Zoë Garbett visited Queen’s Market. Zoe likely cycled down from the new Greater London Authority (GLA) that’s moved into Newham now. Funny, isn’t it? All this “movement” from City Hall, yet so little progress for the local communities living right where they’ve set up shop. To be fair to Zoë and the Greens at the GLA, they have always bothered to listen to the plight of Queen’s Market’s traders, so we really appreciated them coming down.
During their visit, market traders shared powerful stories about why Queen’s Market matters: it’s not just as a place to shop, but is the beating heart of the community. One trader pointed out that the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, seems to view everything through a narrow “investment” lens. Well, if the Mayor truly wants to invest in London’s future, he should start by investing in the people who make this city alive, and not into sterile, privatised developments that push out working-class families and erase our cultural heritage.
London doesn’t need more glass towers and corporate plazas. It needs places like Queen’s Market – places where people connect, trade, and thrive together. But instead of supporting us, the powers that be are letting our markets crumble while calling their plans “regeneration.”
Across London, ethnic minority and working-class neighbourhoods are being steamrolled by gentrification, dressed up as “progress.” As one local put it bluntly: “They’ve proper gentrified the lot.” And for what? So we can pay more for fruit and veg while decision-makers sit in air-conditioned offices paid for by our taxes? No thanks, we won’t stand by and let that happen here.
Meanwhile, even the basics are being ignored. As the days grow shorter, Friends of Queen’s Market, alongside shoppers and traders, are once again pleading for proper lighting inside the market. The issue has been raised time and again – yet still nothing. It’s a simple, essential fix that would make the market safer and more welcoming. We’re calling on those responsible to act now before the new year, before another winter in the dark. Because this market isn’t just a retail place, it’s a community and social space worth fighting for.
Photos (above): Zoë Garbett, the Green Party Deputy Mayor visits Queen’s Market to hear the views of local people.
Members of Friends of Queen’s Market (FoQM) joined the London Land Justice Fair this year at Myatt’s Fields Park in South London, a brilliant community-run space that shows what local power looks like in action!
FoQM members Andrew, Halima, Pauline and Saif spent the day meeting campaigners from Newham and across London, swapping stories, sharing wins, and building solidarity for fairer land use across the city. We can’t recommend it enough – it’s a refreshing change from the dull, corporate “immersive experiences” sold to Londoners and tourists alike – your cash is much better spent on local initiatives that really need it!
Watch the short film from the Land Justice Fair here:
The fair was packed with inspiring stalls, workshops, and grassroots groups all coming together to fight for land justice, community control, and a fairer London. It wasn’t just about campaigning, it was about connection, creativity, and fun.
Ta-da! Just when you thought Newham Council could not get any worse at squandering public finances and taxes during a time of hardship for many local families, the Council have unveiled their latest offer – drum roll – a glorified wood and tin “shack”, that cost tax papers a whopping £1million. Yes, you heard it here, £1million pounds for replacing two functional canopies, that did not need replacing.
Friends of Queen’s Market ask, “what kind of value is the Council providing to the citizens of Newham?“
PHOTO (above): after months of delays, no accountability from officers, and non-stop excuses, the much anticipated new timber canopies have been revealed… resembling, a wood and tin “shack”.
All decoration and no substance
Tonnes of public money had gone to private consultants who have delivered nothing that local shoppers and traders have asked for. Traders, shoppers, shopkeepers and local people put their trust in the Council and its elected representatives when they say they were cajoled into participating in the co-create process. Where locals asked for a refurbished market roof and flooring, officers reassured them, but now years later they are lumbered with pigeon-netting that pigeons can still get into, credit card toilets, and now this wood and tin monstrosity. The Council’s consultants then hurried this through a planning application. Locals were not told nor signposted to it, and now we are in many ways in a worse position than before, and £1million down. The Council’s co-creation process has been extremely demoralising for those who took part in it, and it has broken trust with citizens whose collective taxes pay for the wages of the decision makers, making a mockery of our public finances.
“With 46 people, Newham was the borough with the seventh most council staff earning more than £100,000, an increase of six staff from the previous year.”
Read Tax Payers Alliance findings article here (1st April 2025):
ABOVE (extract form the Town Hall Rich List): Newham Council, one of London’s poorest boroughs pays it’s Executives huge salaries, and nobody really knows what they do. Meanwhile, rents for small traders have increased inside of Queen’s Market.
Friends of Queen’s Market ask: “who chooses these private consultants for Queen’s Market, and are there links to the present cohort of Council’s officers?”
No natural lighting in the new tin and wood “shack”
A long time trader at Queen’s Market said: “Natural light use to come in through the front two canopies of the market, and now there’s no natural lighting coming in. We are at a net loss. Now you have to switch on bright lights, wasting more electricity. This is contrary to what we were promised through the Council’s co-create process. The entire lighting in the market has been a disaster. We have become a laughing stock. This whole public consultation and fake co-create process has been a farce!”
“I am livid. We participated in a process that was prejudicial to beginwith (by excluded many local voices), and now we’re stuck with something that didn’t need replacing. This new wooden thing looks clunky, over structured, and pigeons can easily perch underneath it – this will cause further issues. The council could have easily just renovated the old canopies, kept the structure, updated the wood panels, replaced the lighting wells, painted it properly and saved money. Instead they spent months disrupting market trade, blew £1million – and now this? We’ve been kicked in the teeth”, says local shopper of 30 years. “It’s a disgrace on all fronts.”
PHOTO (above): Previous canopies allowed natural lighting to enter under the canopies.
PHOTO above: “All that glitters is not gold”. The new wood and tin “shack” does not allow natural light to penetrate underneath.
Private contractors go bust
In amongst all of the delays, we were told that the private consultants William Floyd Maclean (appointed by Conway) who built the timber “shack” have gone bust. They left the job early, and this caused further delays for the traders and disrupted our local shopping patterns. In every other professional sector we have due diligence – where is it inside of Newham Council and Queen’s Market?
IMAGE (above): Development timeline from Newham Council made promises that did not deliver. The full works appear to have taken over 2 years longer. Normally, this level of delay for such a scale of project would be considered unacceptable. We did not see any of Executives on high wages fired, did you? [Source: Queens Market Overview Briefing Paper, page 7]
If the Council’s co-creation website is anything to go by, delays appear to be throughout. The co-creation process cost Newham £3.1million of public funds, with the total of £7.3million coming through the Mayor of London and Greater London Assembly’s office via a “Good Growth” fund topped up by Newham Council, but there’s nothing “good” about it! “The information on the co-create website does not look up to date, so it is false information and should be taken down”, says one local trying to navigate the website.
PHOTO (above): What’s the point of spending £millions when in practice it’s not worked well? Pigeon feathers litter the new netting, so no different from before. Traders and shoppers ask, has general maintenance improved? We don’t think so.
Many locals see nothing good about paying private consultants from outside of the borough, while local food rates are hiked through increase in market rates to pay the likes of One Source, a corporate wing of Newham Council.
Newham is claiming it’s on the brink of bankruptcy after finding a £157million deficit in its accounts
Well, we can see that it’s been going to these overpaid officers, and these fancy projects that promises mountains and delivers molehills, whilst lining the pockets of consultants from outside of the borough.
“Significant value for money weaknesses” at Newham Council
After all of this, the UK Government has stepped in and is now monitoring Newham Council over concerns at how ‘broke’ town hall is run – read article below (9 May 2025, Evening Standard article):
So, Newham Council has also fallen short of its Best Value Duty. That’s the duty to the People of Newham – that means they are failing you and me!
Statement from the UK Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
“…significant issues need addressing at pace [by Newham Council] to avoid future failure… The councils are expected to continue driving their own recovery and are requested to engage with the department for assurance of improvement. The notices will be in place for 12 months, after which progress will be reviewed.”
PHOTO (above): fresh produce at Queen’s Market. The Council’s corporate wing called One Source have put market rent prices up, with the cost falling on hard-working local families during a cost-of-living crisis.
Sadly, Newham Council is scheming behind the scenes to demolish Queen’s Market, that’s still under threat from privatisation and luxury flats that locals cannot afford.
PHOTO (above): At the end of April, FoQM members met with a Newham Council Senior Development Manager from “Regeneration and Housing Delivery” and another development manager. We had to remind them that it’s the markets that’s the priority here, not luxury flats. When asked if they knew about the well overdue Newham Markets Strategy, they looked none the wiser.
The evidence of the last few years shows that Newham Council has many other plans to take the market from under us, and was holding many consultations that did not included local people. The UK planning system continues to prioritise the needs of private developers, holding meeting and lobbying behind closed doors, while using tax payers funds.
Friends of Queen’s Market and others have recently piled on the pressure to safeguard the market and signed a letter to the directly-elected Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz – read extracts below:
“…We ask you to drop the ‘two options’ for Queens Market (currently under assessment) Both envisage provision of luxury housing on the site which will inevitably entail demolition of existing market structures like the shops round the market, the kiosks in the market, and /or the ‘compound’ (that’s the structure in Rochester Avenue where traders park store their vital bulk purchases)
We believe that the market does not need redevelopment: Any shortcomings can be addressed by proper maintenance, an improved management regime and the democratic delivery of the improved flooring and lighting for which the Council has already received the money.”
IMAGE (above): The devil in in the detail. The two options remain on the cards for Newham Council, the Mayor and public officers. Under the word “modernise” what they really mean is to demolish and destroy the current historic Queen’s Market, making £millions for wealthy others outside of the borough, while destroying the food source and community space for thousands of local families.
IMAGE (above): “All that glitters is not gold”: a well-known proverb that means not everything that looks attractive or valuable is actually so. It warns against being fooled by appearances and suggests that true worth should be evaluated beyond superficial qualities, so any hollow promises made by the likes of Newham Council’s private consultants must be scrutinised at all levels.
PHOTO (above): no amount of multi-colour paint is going to cover up the broken windows. Don’t be fooled by Newham Council’s cheap decorations. Friends of Queen’s Market are here to ensure the market stays in the community’s hands.
This week, an area manager from the Mayor of London’s office and the Greater London Authority (GLA) visited Queen’s Market (21/01/2025) with a community-led envoy of shoppers, traders and shopkeepers at hand to tell the truth about their experiences regarding the fast disappearing Good Growth funds, that promised so much, but simply delivered cheap decorations!
The envoy including Friends of Queen’s Market, representatives from the traders association and independent shoppers who walked around the market with the GLA area manager and a Newham Council manager for an hour. Local people were visibly frustrated with the terribly slow progress with the Good Growth fund amounting to £7.3million, saying that that they have been ‘kept in the dark’ by public officers, and to add salt to injury, Newham’s “digital divide” a.k.a. Co-create website wasted another £3.1million. When asked about the money re-directed from Queen’s Market to suddenly “save” Stratford’s Market Village (formally Inshops), the manager from Newham Council described the re-directed £700,000 as a “small amount” – seems like a big number to us, seeing as the Council have recently announced near bankruptcy, and wanting to increase Council Tax by a whopping 10% – WHO MAKES THE DECISIONS ABOUT THE PUBLIC FINANCES, WE ASK ?
Friends of Queen’s Market meet with the GLA and Council for a ‘reccy’ of the works to datePillars have finally been installed – did this really cost £1million ?Quick, look busy – traders say work had halted until the news of the GLA visit.FoQM supporters express months and years of frustrations regarding ultra slow works disrupting trade
The fact that there is no new roofing nor improved flooring to date, despite the early promises is an absolute travesty.
The terribly ineffective Con-sultation process and money allocated to deliver the outcomes was raised with the GLA manager, as was the 11 consultations that took place at one time for Queen’s Market – local people were left confused throughout the entire process. Behind the fake consultation façade, the Council was scheming to demolish our historic market, and to pile on luxury flats that locals cannot afford in a lifetime. “The Council have their own contractors, so there’s no way in. It’s like a closed shop, it’s their way or the highway”, said Jamshed, a local trades person.
The lighting that fails to light anything effectively was described as “substandard” and of “poor quality” by the traders association representative. “Millions were spent without asking anybody”, said one shopper visiting from North East London. It transpires now that further lighting will be added by the Council – what about reimbursing the lighting bills for the traders?
The pigeon-netting still allows pigeons in, and structural fabric of the market building has not been improved – see photographs below:
Cheap lick of paint cannot cover up the state of the shop windows – is this really what was “co-created” ?Devil is in the detail: the façade is already cracking – no amount of colour can cover this mess up!
The Market Manager who was also present during the walk around appeared to shrug off genuine concerns, and gave ‘off-the-peg’ answers to what were basic maintenance issues. “It’s so frustrating to communicate with management, who are always first to cover their backs and play the Blame Game, but never do the right thing. We’re not asking for much”, said a shopper.
A hole in the ground that visitors almost tripped intoBurnt items not cleared away (from January 2025)The leg-less litter binThe ‘carrier bag’ tree in the newly decorated Hamara Ghar SquarePuke and rubbish making its way into the drains – shouldn’t it be sweeped away into the bin ?
The community-led envoy told the listening GLA area manager that procurement took an extraordinary long time, and that works were due to be completed in May 2023. We’re almost 2 years over schedule. There’s the markets department, asset management, highways, planning department, property service (One Source) and carpark departments to get through, so decision-making takes too long, and to the detriment of the community and the market traders.
“It’s like a game of Russian dolls inside the Council. We’re told to speak with this department, this head, that officer, that new department – where is the accountability?”
Image (above): Dealing with Newham Council is like a “game of Russian Dolls” say locals [Image source: goldencockerel.com]
The aggressive and annoying loud tannoy that blares out warnings to shoppers about pickpockets fails to welcome visitors to the market. Instead it puts people off from visiting. This is counter to any marketing strategy in the United Kingdom – “We’ve never seen anything like it. [Market] Management appear clueless”, said another local shopper. (The tannoy announcement appeared to have been switched off during the hour-long GLA visit, and then switched back on afterwards).
Photograph (above): Eagle-eyed volunteers at Friends of Queen’s Market showed the GLA and Newham Council managers what local people were presented with at stage 1 of the Co-create process, and what they are now being lumbered with.
“We’ve never seen business this bad. Trade is down. The Council just don’t care, and cannot see how months of disruption affects us. We want to be respected by the Council. Right now, we’re being treated sub-human”, said one longtime trader.
The GLA area manager and Council manager admitted that certain promises from the Good Growth fund have not been delivered adequately and that decisions had changed from the first instance. They said that they will encourage better communication on Queen’s Market with the community and traders, and chase up the current status of the Good Growth expenditure to hasten its delivery. Well, we’ve waited long enough!
Community-led envoy at Hamara Ghar SquareWhen then? A Health & Wellbeing centre that’ll cost £400,000+ … ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
Photograph (above): the community-led envoy at Hamara Ghar Square, located next to Queen’s Market. Traders say that their ideas were not integrated into the final renovation of the square, and that maintenance is woefully negligent.
CLICK TO VIEW the video (above): In September 2024, FoQM made a request to the Mayor of London’s office through Zoë Garbett, Green Party assembly member. The current Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said that he would visit the market to see how the Good Growth funds have been used – or squandered, as we’ve seen so far.
And to top it off, the lighting in the carpark is practically none existent. It’s so dark after 4pm that it’s scaring shoppers away…
Photo (above): The Queen’s Market carpark where a trader recently counted only “1 light of 36 working” [Source: QM trader]
NEWSFLASH (21/02/2025): We never give up! at last, two sort-of wins In the fight to save and improve the market….
The tannoy now welcomes people to the market as well as going on about pickpockets and thieves (the welcome is only in English: wot no inclusivity?)
Newham’s “digital divide” Co-create website has been updated for the first time in months. It says that there is an ‘internal review’ of the two ‘demolish and develop ‘ options for the market’s future. And they actually invite ‘residents with immediate concerns’ to email them on HFGfuturestrategy@newham.gov.uk
So if you are a resident, trader or market shopper and if you are concerned by the threat of luxury flats on the market site: if you have questions about the Council’s less-than-transparent dealings with our market, why not email in and ask. If you like you could copy in friendsofqueensmarket@yahoo.co.uk so we can monitor public concerns. The council even promises to put ‘relevant’ responses on the website. FoQM says don’t hold your breath!
Photo (above): In July FoQM and the Traders Union led a demonstration to highlight the ineptitude by Newham Council and it’s ‘well-paid’ private consultant firms.
Sorry to say “we told you so”, but Newham Council have make a mockery of the public funds meant to help restore Queen’s Market. Over the last few years we have been keeping a close eye on the £7.3million of public funds secured under the Mayor of London, Greater London Authority’s (GLA) ‘Good Growth Fund’, Levelling Up Fund and from Newham Council’s own funds, but sadly there’s little good about it when the funds are in ‘dodgy’ hands.
Friends of Queen’s Market and the Traders Union have put pressure on the Council to explain themselves: they say they will be investigating why the new lights by private consultants have failed to deliver adequate lighting into the market and possibly even poses a public safety risk. Yet, more officer time is being spent on their self-made mess, and some officers are on annual leave during these summer months, which means further delays for the traders!
Image (above): sums up any investigation by Newham Council.
The pigeons have come home to roost
The PIGEON NETTING, meant to stop pigeon has consistently failed to keep pigeons from making home in the inner roof structure, and now the LIGHTING has failed to light up the market! Both cost a whopping £731,000 – that’s for some basic pigeon netting and new lights. This was after the Council spent £116,530 on just removing the pigeon netting.Kerching – looks like a whole bunch of people making a lot of easy money behind the scenes!
400 lights were removed from the market and replaced with just 99 lights. These new lights were suppose to be much brighter and better, but the lighting does not reach the market stalls on the ground.
New lighting fails to light up walkways Traders have to use their own flood lights to showcase goods
Photos (above): On the left, shows how the new lighting does not even light up the central walkways, and on the right how traders are forced to use their own flood lights to showcase their goods. Thankfully it’s summer and the light wells on the roof help bring some natural light inside, but come winter, it will be a different story say traders and shoppers.
“It’s a disgrace” says a local shopper “we were led to believe that the £millions will be spent on a much-needed new floor and roof, but it’s just all cheap decorations with no substance – sums up the Council well, I guess.”
“My customers can’t even see what they are buying under these new lights, so I’ve got no choice but to use my flood lights to light up my stall”, saying one trader who sells fashion accessories.
Naveed Choudhary, Chairman of the Traders Union at the market says:” The Council is saying because it’s darker, it will lead drug users away but it’s the opposite way. When it’s bright, less pickpockets and crimes are committed here, because the drugs users will be scared to come inside… they [the Council] are not listening to us.”
The Good Growth funds were suppose to “cocreate” improvements to the market – another waste of public money – where Newham Council created a ‘Newham co-create’ website for £3.1million that many local people do not access, and is accused of being prejudiced towards many local people who are not digital savvy and cannot understand the jargon.
The amount of funds being wasted by Newham Council from the Good Growth Fund is STAGGERING – see the breakdown below:
Have you shone the light onto the finances at Newham Council? The latest lighting saga is just the tip of the iceberg, of what’s been decades of systemic incompetence and inertia inside Newham Council. Who knows what you find in your investigation…
Recently Friends of Queen’s Market gathered to not only celebrate 21 years of the campaign – time flies when you’re dealing with the failings of a “rotten” borough – but also for our Secretary Pauline’s birthday – happy birthday Pauline!
At the same time FoQM collectively signed our group letter to Newham Council regarding the cumbersome and arduous public consultation process during the Council’s investment strategy consultation. The process is full of contradictions and half truths, all to justify a future plans of what looks like demolition of our much-loved market smothered with luxury, unaffordable flats. Living in the capital has become increasingly hard for long-standing communities during a cost-of-living crisis brought on by the axis-of-corruption ie. banks, ‘dodgy’ local governments and ‘greedy’ private developers. At FoQM we believe everyone makes London what it is, and everyone deserves a slice of the cake.
Photo (above): Our wonderful secretary Pauline divvies up the cake for all as we celebrated her birthday at a local football grounds with many of the Friends of Queen’s Market supporters in attendance. Thank you Lucy for the hand-made card.
Newham Council say that they want to retain the market but they fail to mention the “demolition” plans! The devil is in the detail when greedy developers gather behind closed doors
Read the letter
Thanks to our passionate and eagle-eyed campaigners for all of their dedication in drilling in to the detail and taking notes. Below is a PDF of the letter sent to Newham Council regarding our collective experience of the consultation process concerning Queen’s Market so far:
If for some reason you cannot read the PDF, you can read the full text below:
Date: 2 June 2024
To: clive.Kershaw@Newham.gov.uk green.street@newham.gov.uk
Dear Newham Council,
From Friends of Queen’s Market
c/o 143 Clements Road London E6 2DL
friendsofqueensmarket@yahoo.co.uk
This is the Friends of Queen’s Market response to the current consultation on Queen’s Market Investment Strategy.
1. Background
Friends of Queen’s Market is the community group formed to preserve and protect the market. We have been working for 21 years in pursuit of this aim, written into our Community Charter. We have followed and/or taken part in all stages of the ‘Investment Strategy’ study formerly called the ‘Capacity and Viability Study’.
FOQM exists to protect the service the market provides to the people who rely on affordable food and goods. Many thousands visit the market every week, around 8,000 people are thought to visit the market most days. The cost of living has always been an issue and never more than now and is not going to get better. The Council is well aware of the market’s vital role in serving Newham’s diverse communities.
To most people, ‘The Market’ means the current space, the current stalls, shops and kiosks together with the rent levels that allow traders to charge affordable prices to their customers.
On 30 August 2022 FOQM were pleased to be able to give a presentation to the Council and its consultants, as we wanted to make sure certain issues were heard and understood by those carrying out the Investment Strategy. We submitted the presentation afterwards as our response to the August 2022 consultation. It was sent to Clive Kershaw,
Darren Mackin, Tom Randle, Mike Evans, Paul Frater, Nicola Elcock, Eleanor Soames and acknowledged by Clive on 2 September. We asked for it to be included in the investment strategy’s final report.
2. “Options 2a and 2b”
We strongly object to the reduced choices being presented. Demolition and multi-use are now the only option and we dispute the Council’s justification for it.
Options 2a and 2b are taken from the last consultation, which offered two choices with and without housing on the site. At that time, Option 1 was ‘Refurbish and Modernise: retain, refurbish and modernise Queen’s Market and Hamara Ghar; maintain; adjust the layout of the market, create flexible uses and provide opportunities for the evening economy.’ Option 2 was ‘Modernise and develop’. The shop buildings, compound, below Hamara Ghar and above the market ‘to be explored for development and opportunity for new housing’. (quotes are from presentation boards 2022)
Now in both ‘options’ the market would be entirely demolished and housing would surround and dominate the site. According to what is presented and using other information and logic, the market as we know it would be under threat. A development of this size, which would most likely be under private ownership, would inevitably lead to higher rents, push out traders and force up the price of the food and other goods. Working class communities and all those who require the low-priced food because they have no other choice would suffer discrimination. Access to affordable fresh food has a direct impact on heath including health of children and other health outcomes. The market’s established social value also has a significant positive effect on health.
A street Market surrounded by housing notoriously prioritises private housing residents over market customers and traders, leading to the demise of a market or making it more expensive. We know that private apartment owners do not want to share their space with a traditional street market and we know that incoming developers want to get rid of this kind of activity.
In the case of Rathbone Market, an improved market was promised by the developers and supported by local people when they were asked about the multi-million pound scheme. Once it was built, private owners of the market let the market slide and now there is nothing left and no management. On a normal day there are about 3 stalls, or none, no fruit and vegetables: the development has drastically reduced the community value of the site.
Can the Council name a precedent for its chosen option where this has not happened?
3. “What you’ve told us” ….?
“You said new homes would be welcomed. To match the communities [sic] vision and ambitions for the site the two options now include the delivery of housing alongside other uses that are important.”
It depends which communities are being referred to. We learned that only 220 people commented at the previous stage, meaning the housing option was chosen by under 200 people. There is no way of knowing whether the need for demolition was properly explained to them, or how the question of housing was put, we need to see that data in more detail. According to “views and comments” received, the Council apparently received no comments from anyone about how important the market is to them and how it fits into their “priority of uses”. Maybe this is because the questionnaire only focused only on new uses and there was no box to tick for the market.
People who look at the market from the outside who are not shoppers or live in other parts of the borough may have said in the consultation that they want a redeveloped site, but3 their views must be partly influenced by the council’s severe neglect of the market, for example the poor state of the canopies seen from Green Street. Those people may not know the market’s importance to communities that use it, yet their views have steered the direction of the plans.
Shoppers themselves want the market to be clean and improved (as evidenced everywhere including in Newham Markets Strategy report). But they put up with it because they may have no other choice of where to shop.
In March 2002, Friends of Queen’s Market created a petition which gave people an opportunity to register their support for the market, their opposition to possible demolition and the loss of any shops and stalls and the building of expensive private housing. It asks Newham to respect and protect Queen’s Market and clearly states:
– No demolition of trader storage area
– No demolition of our neighbours’ home: the Hamara Ghar block next door
– No demolition of market shops and kiosks
– No shrinking of market trading area
– No expensive flats for sale on the market site
This was a direct response to proposals in the Investment Strategy which had a brief published in 2020 that said: “maximise the development potential” “Identify the property market demand for the area and provide the likely values for sales and rental of both affordable and private housing products; rental and lease of the commercial floor space, health provision and community floor space”.
The petition was part of our presentation in 2022 and we informed the Council that it had about 2000 signatures at that time. 6,358 people signed the petition up to September 2023 and it was given in at the Full Council Meeting. Leaving aside the points which have since been addressed, such as toilets and the retention of Hamara Ghar, the petition remains a response to the current proposals and it should now be recorded alongside all the views that have been gathered.
If the views of over six thousand people are ignored Newham cannot be genuinely interested in consultation and so-called ‘co-production’. The Council says: We want the community to help us decide the future of Queen’s Market, the Hamara Ghar buildings and the surrounding area. But it’s obvious that the council only likes the feedback that is helpful to its own agenda. So the public is cynical: they do not believe there is a democratic, collaborative approach to the future of Queen’s Market, they see decisions being made behind closed doors that will have a very wide detrimental impact.
4. Missing information that is needed to assess the plans properly
a) The project is called an ‘Investment Strategy’
We can see no figures or financial options to compare even though the Council employed financial consultants Arcadis. The financing of a development as large as this is key to whether the existing Market would survive or disappear. Where is any information on a range of scenarios and different priorities, or a mechanism to ensure low prices to customers, such as the rent levels for stalls and shops? Where is a strategy that will “ensure the people of Newham always have access to healthy, affordable, fresh food for generations to come.”?
(Investment Strategy Study presentation 11072022)
How is ‘Community Wealth Building’ being applied to the Strategy? b) Ownership of the site
The type of ownership, public or private, is a fundamental concern and people need to know more to judge the proposals. From everything that is known about private
ownership in the UK, private owners / leaseholders would have no reason to retain the current low-priced market and that there are few, if any, levers to make them do so. In Newham we have seen what happened at Rathbone Market and Stratford Market Village, in both cases the owners were content to see these markets close or fail.
We have also been asking for years why One Source can over-charge shop tenants and avoid providing reliable leases. Who would own the shops in a new development and how would the Council keep rents genuinely affordable?
c) Converting the market from a Public Highway into a private space.
Would this need to happen if the market site was closed off and the air space built on ? If so what would the effects be? What would be lost and gained by Queen’s Market no longer being part of the public highway?
d) Housing tenure
Newham quotes 33,000 people on the housing register as a reason to build housing on the site, but without a guarantee of the number of social rented homes in the two options nobody knows whether housing would benefit the local community. A series of economic scenarios should be shown to us. Newham has a poor record for securing high numbers of social rented homes and there is no reason to believe that this case would be different. The average amount of new social rented housing in London is 6% of the total and based on the evidence we cannot support either of the Housing options: they do not provide a strong reason to jeopardise the market.
We do not believe that Newham’s housing crisis can be solved by building as many private homes as possible.
e) Timescale
A health centre / library / community use is proposed on the Compound site, no longer a site for workspace funded by Good Growth. Millions of pounds of Good Growth money will still be put into the market and Queen’s Square. What do these things tell us about the proposed timescale for the Investment Strategy? “Five to ten years” has been mentioned, does the Council not realise how it harms trade to hang these possibilities in the air for an indefinite time?
5. Lack of understanding of how Queen’s Market and street markets work
We don’t see enough attention paid to an understanding of the existing market in these plans. The consultants have shown no examples of having worked sensitively on a multi- ethnic historic street market, or anything similar. Newham has a very low number of markets per resident compared to other boroughs but despite this, Newham does not appear to appreciate what it has in Queen’s Market, the largest and most successful.
The model and diagrams appear to show that the market floor area has reduced in size yet it’s claimed there will be no reduction in the number of stalls: impossible unless the size of pitches shrinks. No existing and proposed floorspace area is given for the shops and market so we do not know whether the number of pitches would be workable. How has the figure of 166 pitches been calculated?
Lines drawn out on the floor of the model represent stalls, in reality these would be too close together and don’t allow space for the through-routes that are drawn on both schemes.
Judging from the diagrams the size of the shops has been reduced, for example there is housing at ground level on Queen Street in place of the long narrow shop spaces. Was any consultation done with the current shop owners to discover what kind of space they need? Would larger shop units be the right size for high street chains and is that the objective? Given the relationship between the shops and stalls, the impact of having chain stores cohabiting with the market stalls would be significant change and would have many implications. Has any thought been put into this?
In the current market, all stalls are under cover. The existing canopies are semi-outdoor but are only a small percentage of the market space: traders still have a choice of environment. Locating the entire market to Green Street in Option 2b is out of the question – right next to the road, traffic pollution, semi-outdoor and lacking any protection from the weather, covering the entrance to Hamara Ghar.
In the model of Option 2a, some of the stalls are not under cover and the market is pushed back from Green Street, meaning market stalls wouldn’t be so easily seen from the road. This was termed a ‘weakness’ in the previous plans.
Option 2a has “Two distinct markets with new entrances.” What are these two markets and how are they related? It is potentially damaging to divide up a market and can’t be done without sufficient understanding of how the market functions.
Kiosks have been relocated to Green Street and this fails to acknowledge the usefulness of the kiosks to traders within the market. We understand that some people wish to see a more open internal space, but why separate the kiosks from the stalls, as they provide a role as shops, storage and secure space? There should be a way to include kiosks inside.
Setting up, or altering, a market is a skilled job – the arrangement of space, allocation of stalls and space, relationships between different traders and products, hierarchy of stalls. Above all it must be based around understanding and a dialogue with traders. Has best practice been observed in designing these layouts? Have any experts been consulted?
6. Nowhere to go while demolition and construction takes place
Where would the market go if these major works take place? There was no clear answer to this question at the consultation, in fact it looked like it had not even been considered. The Council’s line “Keeping Queen’s Market open and at the heart of the community” is meaningless. If wholesale demolition is required, with the long timescales involved, we doubt that traders, and therefore the market as we know it, would be able to survive in unknown temporary positions: we are therefore strongly against demolition.
In any case, for an operation such as moving the market temporarily there needs to be 100% trust and respect between management, the Council and the traders. Unfortunately, the current management has a poor record for involving traders and stallholders; decisions are made without their input and the traders do not feel that they are counted as equals. This has been highlighted during the Good Growth works and we do not believe that a temporary market, or any such a major upheaval, would be possible to achieve under the present conditions.
Demolition will create dust and potentially harmful emissions.
7. Newham’s Market Strategy and Policy Review report and the Leeds University Markets 4 People report.
FOQM made a presentation to the Council and consultants on 30 August 2022, as we thought that there were issues that needed to be covered and explained. A PDF of the presentation was sent in afterwards and received by Clive Kershaw, it formed our response to the consultation. There is no evidence to show that the information has been noted or has affected the current plans in any way.
9. Concerns about the recent consultation and in general
Consultation on this issue began during Covid lockdown and was very confusing at the same time as the Good Growth workshops and several other consultations. Also, Digital consultation methods exclude vast numbers of market users.
Current users of the market should be central to the Study yet shoppers were not considered to be stakeholders as part of the working groups.
In-person viewing of the plans was available between 16 – 30 May for less than 24 hours in total.
At the viewing, people were told: “If you don’t like it, fine, tell us why”.
– Putting “No” as a third option was not an apparent choice, there were just the two boards.
– If someone put a coloured sticker in the “no” box for Option 2b, is this counted as a “yes” for Option 2a? How could a “no to both” be counted?
– The stickers are random and appeared to be combined from several sessions and could not be linked to a person or their comments.
– Participants were not identified as being residents, shoppers, traders etc We were also told “nothing in these plans is an actuality”, making the public input confusing. Given that about £260,000 was spent on the Investment Strategy being carried out, we need to know more. Sunday traders should have had a chance to see the plans. The Online Survey This three page survey presents a totally misleading description of the plans, saying:
“Queen’s Market and Hamara Ghar are without doubt hugely important to the communities of Newham and that is why we are committed to ensuring that we preserve, restore and modernise them both” “the two options both look to refurbish, modernise and develop Queen’s Market and Hamara Ghar”
The words preserve and refurbish present a false picture, anyone could be misled. Why is the word Refurbish being used again for Queen’s Market? The previous Option 1 was named Refurbish with Option 2 called Modernise and Develop.
Our collective experience of consultation has been less than satisfactory and we believe Queen’s Market and our future deserve a better, more effective, fairer, more wide-ranging, genuine engagement.
10. Conclusion
The proposals show a new market in a new space which looks like it is designed to bring in a new demographic. Shoppers and traders feel they are not wanted here and can be pushed out, which is causing stress and worry and is harming trade. Saying “there will always be a market” is an empty phrase that does not give any comfort.
At the consultation we heard from Clive that “It’s about providing multi-use development site that offers things the community said are important to them”. If so, the importance of the existing Queen’s Market, its economic and social impact, should be integral to the Study. And with this the economic and social impact of its loss is needed.
Creative ways could be found to provide sympathetic additional uses within the existing market buildings with minimal disruption if there was the goodwill to do so and genuine co-production, but we are not optimistic about the goodwill. Millions of ££ of public money is being provided to improve the market through the Good Growth fund yet we see few effects on the ground. Two years ago Newham’s Market Strategy report told you ‘shoppers want better cleaning’, which is the very least that people should expect and should be normal: why is it not provided?
That said, has the Study calculated the waste of millions of pounds of public money from demolition of the completed works funded by the Good Growth grant?
We believe it is completely unacceptable that the Study ignores the clear views of so many shoppers and traders yet claims that the community has chosen to demolish the stalls and shops at Queen’s Market with little likelihood that they could return.
We ask for our petition and our presentation from August 2022 to be included as part of the Study and the report to Cabinet.
Yours sincerely,
For Friends of Queen’s Market
Communities across the country have had their public assets stripped and sold off at a whim to already wealthy developers, and sadly have been ignored through the consultation process, that promises mountains and delivers molehills.
Image (above): looks like an interesting read – ‘The Big Con’, How the Consulting Industry Weakens Our Businessses, Infantalizes Our Governments, and Warps Our Economies… we know exactly what they mean!
Are unfair tactics and hidden clauses in your lease threatening your small business?
Friends of Queen’s Market (Newham) have partnered with leading campaigns from across London to present a LEGAL WORKSHOP for Traders, Shop Keepers, and Independent Small Business Owners.
Date: Monday, 3rd June 2024 Time: 6:00 PM Location: Online via Zoom
Questionable data used by Council tries to justify demolition of Queen’s Market
Despite the 6,000+ signatures from our public petition and £millions spent from the Good Growth Fund to refurbish aspects of the market, Newham Council’s planning department have decided to continue with their plans to pile on other uses onto the historic 125 year old Queen’s Market.
The two new options under the title ‘Queen’s Market & Hamara Ghar Investment Strategy Study’ shows new plans for the historic market and for the older people’s homes (Hamara Ghar) located next door to the market. Hamara Ghar includes longtime residents who rely on the market for fresh affordable culturally appropriate food, cloth, clothes and home stuff, not forgetting it being an important social space for them also.
Image above: latest plans earmark Queen’s Market for other uses with the market not being a central priority in the “future vision” that’s being decided behind closed doors.
Council trying to pull the wool over our eyes
The Council’s “dodgy” consultations data and ‘bullheaded’ approach means they have ignored local needs despite spending £3million+ for a Co-create website that local people find difficult to access. This is our collective public money being wasted for their ‘experiments’ during a time of hardship for local families. Inside the Cabinet Report, it states: “The Council will enable every resident to live in an accessible and inclusive neighbourhood which will provide all their social, civic and economic essentials” – well, Queen’s Market already provides this, so why is the Council wasting time and public officer efforts to demolish Queen’s Market? Have the publicly-paid officers got nothing better to do with their time?
FoQM have carefully scoured the plans on the table and see many contradictions in the Councils plans that will decimate the vibrancy of the current historic market and the important social space for many. The Council regeneration department have proved time and time again that THEY CANNOT GIVE ANY REASSURANCES THAT THE MARKET WILL SURVIVE ANY REGENERATION PLANS – see poor old Rathbone Market in Canning Town that has sadly been turned into a lifeless car park.
Images above (3): Locals have said time and time again that they want Queen’s Market to be retained and protected, but Newham Council doesn’t appear to know what meaningful dialogue is.
A “future vision” that ignores the wishes of local people
Some of these consultation plans say “Refurbish and modernise” which when we last checked means to spruce a place up and give it a lick of paint, not to DEMOLISH THE MARKET COMPLETELY AND SMOTHER IT with a health/community centres, reduced storage for stall holders, tall towers, workspace etc. with the market taking less priority.
If the nearby Boleyn Grounds is anything to go by, we reckon the flats, health centre and host of other uses being plonked onto Queen’s Market will include LUXURY UNAFFORDABLE FLATS FOR THE ALREADY WEALTHY and even a PRIVATISED MARKET that will ‘zap up’ money that should otherwise go to local people, to local shop owners, local jobs to local families. Queen’s Market is Newham’s most successful public-owned market that subsidises the borough’s other markets, so we know it makes revenue for the Council.
A long-time shopper Nehar said: “Why can’t they [the Council] just leave Queen’s Market be? It’s a proper market that provides for me and my family. The Council seem to want to destroy anything that’s good for us.”
Another local person who has shopped at Queen’s Market for over 35 years says: “During the last consultation [in 2022] I witnessed a Council person (describing themselves as a Translator) say to a family who came along to the consultation: “You want the market to stay, don’t you?”, and then hurriedly tick Option 2 on behalf of the family. It didn’t look like the Translator even knew the difference between both the options. People were given a Hobson’s Choice”.
Image above : British film ‘Hobson’s Choice, 1954. A Hobson’s choice is when you’re given the impression of choosing from multiple options, but in reality, there’s only one available. A well-known example is “Take it or leave it,” where leaving isn’t really a favourable choice.
There is mounting evidence that Newham Council’s data is dangerously wrong and misleading in order to push through demolition/regeneration, and we reckon a privatisation agenda.
Image above : Friends of Queen’s Market critique on the Council’s data presentation (in bright yellow colour). Local reports say that the Council and private consultants boards mentioned ““Refurbish and modernise” but it actually meant demolition.
The dates for the upcoming in-person consultations in May 2024 are as follows:
12-3pm on Thursday16th, Friday 17th, Thursday 23rd and Friday 24th May 2024. Outside unit 12 & 13 at Queen’s Market.
5pm-8pm on Wednesday21st May 2024 at Green Street Library.
12-3pm on Wednesday 28th May 2024 at Katherine Road Community Centre.
5pm-8pm on Thursday 30 May 2024 at Plaistow Library.
Be sure to pop by, take detailed notes and drop FoQM an email about your experience.
Hold the public officers accountable: our collective taxes pay for their jobs! We do not want to see our main food source and social space, the historic Queen’s Market demolished.
Friends of Queen’s Market recently had input into the Just Space 2024 Manifesto.
This manifesto serves as a vital tool for sharing grassroots insights and lessons on shaping a city that is better, fairer, and more compassionate through urban planning while considering the needs and welfare of London’s diverse communties.
Formulated through collaborative efforts among various Just Space groups during workshops held after Just Space’s March conference, this manifesto represents a collective undertaking.
Early on Saturday 6th April Zoë Garbett, the Green Party’s Mayoral candidate for the top London seat met with the traders, Friends of Queen’s Market and shoppers to understand why Queen’s Market is crucial to the health and wellbeing of Londoners across generations. Zoë visited with another Green Councillor, took time to speak with the head of the traders association and spoke with shoppers as well.
Zoë was asked what she will do to protect London’s street and community markets, at which the reply came that the Greens at the London Assembly intend to make markets a key priority should they get into the top London seat – well that was welcome news to all of us!
Photo gallery above: Zoë Garbett, the Green Party Mayoral candidate for London visited Queen’s Market to listen to what traders, shoppers and Friends of Queen’s Market have been experiencing.
To promote and preserve a thriving publicly-owned historic street market 