In January's planning meeting the council deferred their decision but failed to look at how the local community has suffered as a result of City infringement or the detriment likely to caused by development.

Developers are pushing local traders out by forcing them to pay for their own conditions such as repairing the roof which was left to rot after market plans were first passed by Tower Hamlets Council in 1997.

Councillors previously suggested setting up a forum for this discussion, but unsurprisingly have not done so - a further example of their failure to address local concerns in Spitalfields. The Council recommends passing all the current plans.

The City means bland homogenisation already being seen on Brushfield Street and usual suspects like Starbucks and Pizza Express occupying buildings. The Community of Spitalfields or Banglatown is the forgotten equation.

The responses of the local councils can be seen as follows:

What the development means for traders and residents

* The area for stalls will be reduced by over half because Ballymore want to build large permanent blocks of units for retail and restaurants inside the open space. These glass blocks will reduce the floor space
by nearly 50%.

* The Sunday market will be reduced from 250 to only 170 stalls. Over 130 Sunday stallholders will lose their pitches.

* The new shop units will be permanent premises not Sunday pitches. They would in theory be available to stallholders but the rents will be much higher than current stall rents. There is no provision for local shops.

* Ballymore say that they will retain 340 stalls. This is because they are planning to open a Saturday market - they have counted 170 stalls twice. This would introduce a two-tier system of Sunday traders and Saturday traders. Unlike Sunday, Saturday is not an established day for markets in the area.

* The stalls area doubles as an "event space" - when there is an event there will be nowhere for the stalls to go.

* More late-night drinking venues ignore concerns of residents in the Horner Buildings.

* Ballymore’s plans for the “Saved” Spitalfields Market will completely change the valued character, diversity and originality of the market as it is now. They will create a sanitised market dominated by large units, mainly restaurants and bars, at standard rents, with less opportunity for small enterprises. With the approved plans for the Foster office building that destroys the western half of the Market they will complete the City’s takeover of Spitalfields instigated by the Corporation of London and its developers SDG for their financial gain and with the loss of local assets.



“Ken Livingstone claims to have ‘retained’ the market but his backing for the disastrous Spitalfields Development plans will lead to the destruction of part of this thriving community market in favour of yet more office space. There was little question of whether the market was going to be retained. The real questions have always been in what form it would be retained, and who would benefit most.” Darren Johnson, Leader of the GLA Green Party, after the Mayor’s approval of the Foster building, 23/10/02.