Islington Tribune - News: Heritage group in bid to save historic market

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Islington Tribune - by PAUL KEILTHY
Published: 16 November 2007

Artist’s impression of the new development

Heritage group in bid to save historic market

Developers question value of buildings

THE threatened Victorian fabric of Smithfield Market has been described as “unexceptional” and “weak” by architects as the public inquiry into its future pitted conservationists against developers for a second week.
Since planning approval was granted in May, bulldozers have been primed to demolish some of the last vestiges of the Victorian architecture which marks the site where London butchers have sold meat and livestock for 800 years.
But the last-ditch defence of the cluster of buildings around Farringdon Street by English Heritage has brought about a public inquiry into the plan of would-be developers, Thornfield PLC, to destroy the General Market Building and replace it with a glass and steel complex housing offices and shops.
Thornfield have gone on the attack, questioning English Heritage’s assessment of the buildings’ architectural merit.
Yesterday (Thursday), LSE professor Robert Tavernor – employed as an independent expert witness by Thornfield – said there was “nothing exceptional about the building”.
Lined up alongside Thornfield – who insist only demolition can save the site from its current state of decay – are the City of London’s planners and the Smithfield Market Tenants Association, both desperate for any change to the market’s worsening blight.
At the root – literally – of the dispute is the fact that the buildings are constructed on a series of slabs, under which runs the Thameslink line.
By laws dating to 1880, whoever owns the site carries the responsibility to maintain these slabs or “railway lids” – a hugely expensive burden which the City, the freehold owners, say can only be met by allowing the developers free rein.
The market buildings wear the years of neglect. Apart from occasional squatters, they have lain largely empty for nine years.
English Heritage claim to detect a gleam below the grime, however, describing “potentially extremely attractive Victorian buildings in
a conservation area”.
Last week, English Heritage’s advocate Robert McCracken QC accused the City of London of a “flagrant disregard of national Government policy” in that “it chose secretly to make a deal with Thornfield in which the latter would demolish the building. The aim behind this deal was to make more than £11m extra for the City”.
But Thornfield has fought back, arguing that their proposal to knock down the general market and replace the railway lids will bring “immense benefit” to a travelling public who might otherwise be seriously disrupted if the lids break down.
They have also been at pains to undermine English Heritage’s proposed market regeneration scheme, describing it as “economically unviable”.
The inquiry is scheduled to run for three months.
If successful, Thornfield PLC aims to begin demolition in time to replace the railway lids between July 2008 and July 2009.

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