SPITALFIELDS MARKET UNDER THREAT’S (SMUT) campaign to retain the whole of Spitalfields market as a public space is vital in an area with almost none. Ninety per cent of local residents and the 31,000 people, who have signed a petition, want the market for community use.

Spitalfields Market is the hub of the E1 creative enclave. This culturally eclectic space has been a market since the 1600s but is under the threat of office redevelopment. Freeholder, the Corporation of London, wants planning permission to demolish three-fifths of the market. Replacing it with a bog standard office block designed by Norman Foster for corporate law firm Allen & Overy.

Claims that this office block will ‘transform Spitalfields from a deteriorating area into a vibrant, thriving community’ ignore the obvious. The threatened Western Extension saw the developers evict all artists, craftspeople and fledgling businesses that helped make it a vibrant thriving community.
The City knows that if it can ‘cleanse’ Spitalfields by burying it under a huge "ground scraper" they will be able to advance into the whole city fringe area of Spitalfields, Shoreditch and Hoxton. These front line areas of the Urban Renaissance have regenerated through small scale initiatives and the creative determination of people who have chosen to live and work there. The destruction of Spitalfields Market is the City of London’s vital next step in their scorched earth policy of "incremental creep" into surrounding neighbourhoods.
Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has the last chance to stop this scheme and protect key site Spitalfields Market instead of sanctioning its destruction on the altar of corporate greed. Let Ken and Tower Hamlets know what you think and help SMUT protect this precious place.

Write or e-mail
Ken Livingstone
Mayor of London
Romney House
43 Marsham Street
London SW1P 3PY
 mayor@london.gov.uk

Write to Peter Minoletti
Tower Hamlets Town Planning
41-47 Bow Road
E3 2BS.