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London's 850-year-old food markets to close

bbc.co.uk

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Re: London's 850-year-old food markets to close

#281

Post by DrBazza »

nixpulvis wrote: post #213
DrBazza wrote: post #175

The Corporation of London own the land Billingsgate is on. They've been looking to redevelop this for over a decade since the land's value is now magnitudes more than when it was built because of Canary Wharf and the new Canary Wharf Crossrail station. It's prime real estate land, possibly the best plot in London right now. And so is Smithfield, or at least the land that Museum of London is on, and they're moving to…

How much of that value was created by the food markets?

Billingsgate? Not so much.

The brief history of the area:

- Isle of Dogs, London, was the main docks area, which shutdown through the 1960s and 1970s due to standard sized containers and automation.

- 1982 Billingsgate moves to Isle of Dogs. There's nothing else there. Docks are closed. Land is cheap, and the site is easily accessible from the East for sellers, and from the West for buyers (London restaurants etc.).

- Creation of the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) in 1981 and the granting of Urban Enterprise Zone status to the Isle of Dogs in 1982, starts the conversion of the old docks into the new business zone

- From the 90s onwards CSFB, BarCap, MS, Citi, HSBC all move to Canary Wharf

- Property and land prices are now vastly higher.

- 2022ish, Crossrail opens. Land prices and property prices increase even more.

Corporation of London has long realised it's sitting on a gold mine: the land north of the North Dock is Billingsgate

https://maps.app.goo.gl/VnWimrk3mHw63MFP6

Re: London's 850-year-old food markets to close

#282

Post by DrillShopper »

gyomu wrote: post #71
roughly wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christ, yeah - I came here to post the same quote. What kind of horrific shit does one need to go through in life to become capable of uttering that kind of horseshit with a straight face?

Maybe we shouldn’t be casting stones from the HN glass house, because literally every other startup here has a mission statement that sounds as ridiculous as this

And they are relentlessly mocked for doing so (as they should be)

Re: London's 850-year-old food markets to close

#283

Post by throw0101a »

walterbell wrote: post #195
throw0101a wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that these are not culturally significant institutions and most people in London don’t care. Ordinary Londoners rarely use these markets, and they mostly sell to restaurants […] Just because most Londoners don't care doesn't make them unimportant. They can provide a useful 'infrastructure' role for allowing this specific sector to run more smoothly. There's a similar thing in Toronto, the Ontario Foo…

https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2007/10/inside_the_ontario_... > The whole operation is overseen by the Ontario Food Terminal Board.. $8 million of expenses... with a revenue rate exceeding that by $1 million, the operation is profitable, self-sustaining and receives no government support or preferential treatment despite its status as an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.. Some o…

The fact that the major grocers in Canada is an oligopoly is separate issue from the efficiency of having a market like the OTF.

I personally know someone who has a business license and goes to the OTF for stuff. Once a year my mom tags along so she can get Christmas flowers at wholesale prices (you just have to show up at 3AM for good selection):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poinsettia

Re: London's 850-year-old food markets to close

#284

Post by petesergeant »

asveikau wrote: post #210
shermantanktop wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which many people call “Tesco’s” for some reason. I had to read your comment twice to spot the issue.

There is a tendency to make store names possessive even if they aren't. I usually hear about this in the US, I can't recall a lot of UK examples, but I think we have it here.

I had a chat with ChatGPT earlier who said much the same thing, but I was unconvinced by any of the examples other than Marks and Spencer(s). I think Tescos just feels nicer to say?

Re: London's 850-year-old food markets to close

#285

Post by hnbear »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #276
pmontra wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They shouldn't but they do. Making the world a better place is not what founders have in mind. What they have in mind is "we are looking for an exit and retire young", for nearly all of them. Unfortunately those words are not something they can write in a mission statement so they must be creative.

Not just startups, this cognitive dissonance is everywhere in business and we're supposed to just swallow it. Honestly I've been a cynical prick for most of my adult life and for a while I played along with it but it just does not align with my values and keeping up the pretense is draining. I mean uh. Come work for us / hire us, we're the best at what we do! Honest! AI!

Silicon Valley made fun of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8C5sjjhsso

Re: London's 850-year-old food markets to close

#286

Post by sfjailbird »

mintplant wrote: post #248
sfjailbird wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone is looking for a good read, there's a great book called Arcadia , which revolves around this trend of traditional city food markets being supplanted by upscale hipster traps.

Any idea who wrote it? There are many books with this title.

Doh, it's by Jim Crace, should have mentioned that.

Re: London's 850-year-old food markets to close

#287

Post by walthamstow »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #140
walthamstow wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they're not opening a new one! They're closing the current one and telling the traders to fuck off somewhere else

Yo E17 my homie! Think of it as encouragement to the traders to find their own new location :)

I read in the FT this morning that rather than the traders being told to fuck off as I earlier stated, they are being paid a handsome sum to go quietly.

Many of them will simply retire, one trader is quoted as saying. Sounds like the Costa del Sol and Canary Islands are about to get a large influx of cockney butchers.

Re: London's 850-year-old food markets to close

#288

Post by devchix »

gadders wrote: post #143
petargyurov wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a scallop and bacon roll > £8 Bloody hell...

Looks like it was only a fiver in 2020: https://thefoodconnoisseur.co.uk/breakfast/billingsgate-cafe... It's not Greggs prices, but I'd like to try it at least once. It looks like it closes at 8am though.

This thing looks amazing! The vibe of this place makes me think of all the disappearing delis all over the US, eg. Katz's https://ny.eater.com/2019/8/28/20829116/katzs-delicatessen-r...

When the Tsukiji fish market was still open to unescorted tourists there were many of these pocket eateries, I ate in one that was the size of a large closet, guests sat elbow to elbow, you can't lean back without bumping into another person who has lined up behind you to claim your seat when you're done. Clam broth, raw fish, chased with a beer, all before 6AM.

Re: London's 850-year-old food markets to close

#289

Post by fch42 »

Yeul wrote: post #188
tempusalaria wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that these are not culturally significant institutions and most people in London don’t care. Ordinary Londoners rarely use these markets, and they mostly sell to restaurants, and require major financial support. Not everything from the past is good. We don’t still run coal power plants in London just to get that historic smog. They were already planning to move both markets way out of central London (t…

The reality is that the restaurant food is brought by trucks from warehouses. There are special companies that specialise in providing everything that a restaurant needs. Aside from Michelin star places chefs don't go around buying anything the whole ordering is highly automated.

Visiting Billingsgate will teach you that quite a few restaurant folks (and quite a few "normal people") shop there, in addition to (smaller) fish traders.

Smithfield, at least to me, always had a different vibe; more pro-to-pro/business-to-business, but also they deliver or commission to pre order there; different from Billingsgate.

Re: London's 850-year-old food markets to close

#290

Post by FredPret »

fecal_henge wrote: post #258
DocTomoe wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know which planet you live on, but London's public transit is hellish on days where it works. The fact that there seems to be industrial action every other week, that the subway is slowly heating up, and major stations are virtually always overcrowded is not something I even take into consideration. Not when the local trains have a toss-of-a-coin chance of actually showing up at all, or even in a configuratio…

Certainly not my experience of London transport. I get a combination of trains, tubes and busses most days. I also grew up in rural England so I know what shitty transport is really like.

The tube is great (less so when they're striking or there's snow or it's rush hour).

But London is a singularly great place for tube tunnels and other mass transit:

- birthplace of the industrial revolution

- had a ton of infrastructure development during the 1800s when safety was no concern and development could be done cheap and fast

- high density

- lots of engineers and other skilled people to make it work

- tons, tons of money and support from a big government in a high-tax society

- focal point of a global empire for a long time, which fed all the above even more

- a nice layer of softer rock underneath the city perfect for tunnelling

We should build mass transit in places like this where it makes sense. But for 99% of the rest of Earth's populated surface, it won't.

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