Join FoQM, London-wide supporters, academics and other market campaigners for a 1-day conference to learn from the historic East End Street Markets: the threats, the challenges and on what community value means today.

Details of the 1-day conference:

Learning from East End Street Markets

Date: Monday 21st August 2023, 10am-5pm

Place: Hason Raja Centre, 117 Vallance Road, Whitechapel E1 5BW

The post-Covid 19 cost-of-living crisis has shown the importance of street markets for economic resilience in London’s embedded communities, yet East London’s historic street markets are increasingly under threat due to land speculation, changing public policies and shifts in consumer behaviour.

This conference follows on from June 2019’s ‘The Future of London’s Street Markets’ held in Brixton. We will hear from East London’s longest standing market campaign, the Friends of Queen’s Market (Newham) to identify future threats and key issues facing markets in ‘ethnic majority’ areas of London.

The Just Space Network’s Community-led Recovery Plan and the University of Leeds research findings on the community value of street markets (2022) will set the grounds for afternoon workshops, with input from East End campaigners facing pressures from the financial city and hardline gentrification.

Afternoon group workshops will examine the current position of street markets in understanding the historic East End, its diverse communities and evolving landscape, as places that foster community cohesion to address isolation, provide affordable food for healing, wellbeing and examine the threats to market livelihoods today.

BOOKING: Free to attend. Booking essential. Limited places. Book your place through this Eventbrite link: https://streetmarkets.eventbrite.com/

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This conference would suit community activists, market traders, academics and policy makers alike- everyone is welcome. To get the most from the day, participants are encouraged to stay for the duration. Vegan South Asian food will be provided for lunch. Participants can bring their own food to share.

Workshops to be led by East End Round Tables.

The conference is supported by Just Space Network, Loughborough University, University of Leeds (Geography), the Friends of Queen’s Market and Street Markets UK.

To contact Street Markets UK: email streetmarketsuk@gmail.com or call 07915 234 404 (Saif).

An early morning demonstration was underway outside Newham Town Hall on Thursday 6th July as Councillors met to decide the future of Queen’s Market. Friends of Queen’s Market (FoQM) and other local supporters gathered outside to shout out their demands to protect Queen’s Market, a vital source of fresh affordable food and clothes during a cost-of-living crisis, for some of London’s poorest families.

Newham Council appear to have given the public just 2 options over the future of the market; both FoQM say means demolition or part-demolition of the market, and likely luxury unaffordable flats. “The market should remain as a market. Any disruption is bad for business. £7m public money is currently being spent to refurbish the market, and behind closed doors the Council want to knock it down? The Council is contradicting itself”, says a furious lifelong shopper. 

FoQM have so far gathered over 5,000 hand-signed signatures from shoppers and hard-working families from their weekly signature stall held outside of the market to demand that the historic market is protected.

FoQM accuse Newham Council of sending out mixed messages about Queen’s Market: where the Council say they are helping locals over the cost-of-living crisis, yet then want to knock the community’s vital food source down. The campaign group say that the Council have digitally excluded huge swathes of the local population through an online “co-create” public engagement platform that has so far failed to listen to the Newham community nor understand their needs. 

The London Borough of Newham remains one of the poorest boroughs in the UK, with a young growing population and latest statistics say is the UK’s most ethnically diverse borough.

Gallery (below): Photos from FoQM’s Cost-of-Living demonstration (Councillors were apparently seen entering the Town Hall via the back door)

As if the global Covid-19 lockdown was not hard enough for local people and as if development companies didn’t have enough money in their pockets, Newham Council have built yet more fancy flats on top of a historic market and obliterated the market in the process-!

Poor East Ham Market has been swallowed up by overshadowing flats and turned into a dead end (Myrtle Road); once a thriving place that gave jobs to local people is now nowhere to be seen.

Newham Council officers and public representatives always say they want to keep markets and even promised a local Markets Policy but to date it’s nowhere to be seen. Only a few years ago officers from the planning department invited the Friends of Queen’s Market for a chat about local markets and promised to improve East Ham Market- hollow words from officers with little knowledge and shame on the ‘career’ politicians who enable this behaviour. It shows that they simply do not care. It’s little wonder nobody trusts the ‘weasel’ words of Newham Council, its developer “friends” and the vast array of private consultants that surround them these days.

Scrolling gallery 1 (above): can you see a street market? We can’t. East Ham Market is destroyed and turned into a dead end road. Who made the big bucks we wonder?

A “Your Community Forum” notice board that you cannot access, pin up on, nor read properly… so much for the Council’s promises of “co-creation”

Scrolling gallery 2 (above): How East Ham Market use to look (source: Pinterest.co.uk)

The destruction of East Ham Market is just one example of why the public in Newham do not trust the Council officers and the ‘career’ politicians who often force regeneration along with hardline gentrification without considering the impact on local people’s lives and our collective heritage.

Have you dug into how these developers are chosen, how much profit they make or the affordability of these fancy flats in relation to local incomes?

Newham’s Local Plan is in need of a review but reports have reached us from across the borough that Council officers have failed to tell people how the Local Plan impacts their lives. Consequently local people are desperately reaching out to planners telling them of their needs but planners just shrug it off saying they cannot help.

How many local people of diverse backgrounds understand the overcomplicated wording in the Local Plan?

What is this smokescreen Newham keep presenting to its people?

How many more £millions will the Council be making for their preferred developer friends?

Below is a local person’s response to Newham’s Local Plan:

“The impact of the Local Plan is huge on the existing embedded communities who the planning system says have ‘protected characteristics’ under UK law. These communities suffer from poverty, multiple social inequalities and lack of provisions, yet presently the Local Plan does not address the impact of development, regeneration and changes in the built environment on these mainly BAME groups. The Local Plan acknowledges their existence but then immediately ignores the impacts of development on them.

The Local Plan fails to adequately safeguard street markets that have historically existed in certain areas like in East Ham- now East Ham market has disappeared. The only publicly-owned successful street market, Queen’s Market in Upton Park remains under threat by speculative development. Queen’s Market should be protected at all cost as it’s vital to Newham’s growing families.

The Local Plan should mention that any housing on top of street markets or surrounding a market does not work eg. see Rathbone Market in Canning Town- presently a near dead market. The Local Plan should designate street markets as places of importance for trade, employment, health, wellbeing and for the social needs of BAME groups.

The 15-minute neighbourhood is a typical top-down idea that fails to consider the reality of the lives lived by the residents and citizens of Newham. The economic modelling fails to consider the needs of local people eg. the variety of fresh affordable food that’s needed for a healthy lifestyle cannot just ‘pop up’ easily on every street corner. The 15-minute neighbourhood idea fails to consider the needs of the many faith communities in the borough, so temples, mosques and gurdwaras are not factored into it. Provision is mainly given to fast food eateries that residents can already order for delivery by courier. The 15-minute neighbourhood fails to consider the needs and travel time of elderly, disabled residents and their carers – there are 24,000+ carers in Newham alone, yet little consideration for their spatial needs.

The over provision of expensive luxury flats has meant that the new generation of young BAME professionals see no hope in the borough, yet developers can buy multiple homes. Consequently the Local Plan fails in its role to reflect the needs of local peoples’ aspirations. Instead the Local Plan paves the way for increased polarisation of communities, excessive fast food (unhealthy) eating experiences, betting shops and failed civic spaces, so citizens have little choice. The Local Plan lacks any real imagination, probably a reflection on the mono-cultural thinking of officers in Newham.

Presently Newham’s Local Plan is racially divisive and creates places where locals of BAME heritage feel threatened to enter due to over securitisation (see excessive death of black youth in custody), or people simply feel it’s not for them. Newham’s Local Plan asks members of BAME communities to ‘rubber stamp’ the financial expansion of already rich developers in one of the poorest areas of the country. BAME residents are reduced to “poverty porn” and “ethnic window dressing” and are not even remunerated when their photographs are brutally taken without their consent. This is inhumane treatment and needs to be addressed at strategic level if Newham’s Local Plan wants to be what it claims to be. The Local Plan presently fails Newham’s residents.”

Newham Council’s PR and ‘fake’ engagement teams are on overdrive with rhetoric and spin. Turns out the new “Community Wealth Building” person is putting rents up again for market traders- no wonder people are suspicious of their claims!

The latest UK census shows Newham as the UK’s most diverse borough- many of these hard-working citizens serve the City and shop at Queen’s Market.

https://www.nationalworld.com/news/uk/census-2021-results-religoiusly-diverse-areas-uk-3937137

In an age of misinformation and ‘fake news’ we have had our supporters look through the endlessly changing promises being made by Newham Council and their private consultants. It appears they want to duplicate the Queen’s Road West Community Centre located just 5 minutes away. There’s also talk of a Library when we already have one 3 minutes walk away, and finally Newham Council keep saying that they have successful markets but when we visited Rathbone Market in Canning Town – a shadow of it’s former self – it’s only got a handful of stalls and no fresh fruit of vegetables in sight- so much for Newham Council’s Health & Wellbeing Strategy!

Had Newham Council consulted local people properly then good practical ideas might emerge. Instead their top-down approach takes ‘off the peg’ ideas that nobody needs and is a waste of public funds and time of the public officers- who knows what kind of public service they provide in those shiny offices!

Photos above: Rathbone Market is Canning Town has sadly turned into a carpark to serve the luxury flat owners overlooking the site. The atmosphere is dire. The market only contains a handful of stalls with priority given to multi-national brands… we don’t want to see this for the historic Queen’s Market.

‘Old lamps for new’ shouted the peddler in the Aladdin story – we’re not trading in our historic and diverse street market for a privatised new one with luxury flats that nobody can afford!

Don’t be fooled by the offers given by Newham Council- we have found that their offers and dangling fruits change depending on the situation they are in! The “old lamps for new” refers to the sneaky way a magical lamp was taken in the story of Aladdin in exchange for a shiny new ordinary lamp. Don’t be short-changed! Shop at the market!

We reckon that maybe Newham Council’s officers have mistaken public consultation for private consultants- how negligent of them! So far there’s been little to reassure local shoppers and traders that the Council actually cares for local people during a cost of living crisis. The flashy looking Information Hub (picture below) located inside of the market is closed most of the time. It shows that Newham Council can turnover an interior design job quite quickly, so why our our promised toilets, new roof and floor taking years to arrive?

Below are some photographs from our recent stalls during the winter months. It’s vital that local shoppers many of whom already suffer from systematic prejudice and discrimination, digital exclusion and language barriers are listened to and that their ideas to retain and refurbish the market is acted upon.

You’ve been paid from the Good Growth Fund, so deliver the goods Newham Council!

Queen’s Market is important for many faith communities. it’s also an important social space for many of Newham’s diverse communities. On Saturday 22 October 2022 Friends of Queen’s Market campaigners held a stall to celebrate Diwali, the festival of light and triumph over darkness…

Wishing all of our supporters a Happy Diwali !

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:

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/respect-and-protect-queen-s-market

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!

Here’s the petition link again: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/respect-and-protect-queen-s-market

We suspect that there is a ‘managed decline’ of Queen’s Market, due to developer-led pressure to build on the site. Between the planning department, policy makers and politicians, Queen’s Market has been neglected and some obvious issues have never been solved.

One such issue is the nuisance of pigeons who naturally see the market as a covered spot to get away from the elements. In our conversations with Newham Council officers, their private consultants and a market employee we notice that they all give different views on whose responsibility it is to remove pigeons, with one person placing the blame on traders (cheeky!) and saying that the Good Growth Fund will sort the pigeon issue out.

So does the responsibility for the pigeons lie with planning enforcement, environment & public health, pest control, market maintenance or should the cost come from the Good Growth Fund?

Scrolling photo gallery showing where pigeons might get into the roof netting:

Scrolling gallery (above): officers tell the public contradictory things and often display a ‘pass the buck’ attitude. A sea of red banners with ever-changing messages that could see our public market demolished, replaced and we suspect even privatised!

FoQM have attended a number of Newham Council’s public consultations inside Queen’s Market over the last few months (August-September 2022). They’re telling us about their ‘Investment Strategy’ for the market, previously called the Capacity and Viability Study. These ‘off the peg’ consultation are the reason why so many Londoners have broken trust with local planning departments, are sick and tired of hollow words from officers that promise so much but deliver very little tangible difference – what has been your experience of public consultation in the planning process?

Below is the contents of an e-mail a local shopper sent to the Mayor of Newham and an officer following their visit to the consultation hub in August 2022:

Dear —– ——-, Green Street Programme Manager

I went along to the Public Engagement Event today only to find that the consultants are giving out misleading information to the general public.

Following months of consultation, the Council have reduced the 5 options from the previous public consultation to 2 shortlisted options for the public to decide and comment on.

Here’s what I experienced:

1. One person who introduced themselves as a ‘translator’ told a visiting family that Option 1 would mean that nothing would change – this is untrue.
2. The translator proceeded to explain what the options to “modernise” might mean, but failed to say that these further shortlisted options would mean some level of demolition and relocation of the existing Queen’s Market, of market uses or functions – again, nothing of this information was written in the information boards nor told to the visiting public.
3. The consultants were all filling in forms for visitors on their behalf. The forms did not give the option to people to provide their details, so the forms could be easily be filled in by anyone. The public’s right to withdraw was not given either.
4. In addition to Option 1 and 2, the public don’t have a 3rd option to choose from, where they might not want to vote on the shortlisted two options. 
5. The drawings for the Hamara Ghar (HG) boundary are depicted wrongly on many of the boards eg. one drawing includes Queen’s Square as part of HG, another with HG’s footprint at half the size and one shows the Queen’s Pub and Focus Furnishings included as part of HG – all misleading and inaccurate.
6. All the officers and consultants I encountered said that the Investment Strategy ideas being shown were to get a feel of what people want and not necessarily what will happen – what’s the point of taking the public through a process that will not be considered?
7. The options presented showed that some of the work undertaken from the Good Growth fund could be demolished eg. Architecture 00’s current planning application for offices on top of the Queen’s Market compound.

If the process I experienced today has continued since the beginning, the Council and its officers will end up with 95% of visitors unknowingly choosing Option 2 ie. to demolish the market and develop it. We spoke with some shopkeepers and workers who say that they did not know that demolition, displacement, housing and inevitable rent rises were on the cards – they said that this was not explained to them.

We are getting very concerned about the level of misleading information being told to the general public.

I would like to know how the findings from the the latest consultation will be processed and the next steps in this engagement process.

Yours sincerely,

— —-

An officer had replied to the email above but did not say how the feedback would be incorporated into any changes to the entire consultation on Queen’s Market 🙄

Do you know what the Council’s new buzz words “co-design”, “co-create” and “co-production” really mean?