London’s centuries-old meat and fish markets are on the move. Smithfield and Billingsgate, which have supplied butchers, restaurants and fishmongers for generations, are now set to leave their historic homes and share a new base on Albert Island in the Royal Docks by the end of the decade – a shift that will reshape the way London is fed and deliver a major jolt of investment to Newham.
The plan, announced by the City of London Corporation alongside the Greater London Authority, would see a new “New Smithfield” and “New Billingsgate” built on an around 10-hectare (25-acre) riverside site east of London City Airport. The Corporation estimates the relocation will generate £750 million in local expenditure, create about 2,200 jobs in Newham and add roughly £130 million to the wider UK economy over 30 years.
Traders will not be packing up overnight. Both markets are expected to continue operating at their current sites — Smithfield, just north of St Paul’s, and Billingsgate in Poplar — until at least 2028, giving wholesalers and their customers time to adapt. But the direction of travel is now clear: the City has signed a memorandum of understanding with the GLA, and the Royal Docks site has been confirmed as the “preferred” location. The move still depends on a private bill in Parliament to end the markets’ historic trading rights at their current locations, as well as full planning consent from Newham Council.
For the markets themselves, the move is both rupture and opportunity. Smithfield has been a meat market for more than 900 years, while Billingsgate traces its origins back over a thousand years, relocating from the City riverfront to Poplar only in 1982. At Albert Island, they will swap Victorian halls and 1980s sheds for purpose-built, temperature-controlled facilities designed around modern food hygiene, logistics and carbon targets. The City says apprenticeship schemes will be transferred and expanded, and a new food school is planned on site to train the next generation of butchers, fishmongers and chefs.
For customers — from East End fish shops to West End restaurants — most of the change will be felt in how they get to the market, rather than what they can buy. The Royal Docks location sits inside the M25, close to the A13 and North Circular with Gallions Reach DLR nearby, and is already earmarked as a logistics and industrial hub. Many traders argue this will make early-morning access for vans easier than threading through central-London streets; others worry about longer journeys for customers based in the City and inner west. In time, better road links and the ability to park and load more easily could help keep prices competitive by cutting wasted time, but that will depend on how well the new site is laid out for traffic and cold-chain operations.
The financial implications are significant at both ends of the move. The previous plan to relocate all three wholesale markets — including New Spitalfields — to a single super-site at Dagenham Dock collapsed in 2024 when projected costs jumped to about £740 million and inflation pushed construction budgets beyond what the City considered affordable. Nearly £230 million had already been spent on land and enabling works, leaving Barking and Dagenham with a cleared site but no market, and a regeneration gap that local leaders are still trying to fill.
The Royal Docks approach is narrower — focusing only on meat and fish — but still substantial. Detailed capital costs have not yet been published, but alongside the projected £750 million local spend the City has also reportedly set aside more than £300 million in compensation and support for traders to relocate, a recognition of the upheaval involved in moving businesses that often span several generations.
Back in central London, the relocation unlocks two of the most valuable redevelopment sites in the capital. The listed Smithfield market halls are already being reimagined as a cultural and commercial district: the London Museum (formerly Museum of London) is due to open its new home there in 2026, with food, retail and event spaces around it. At Poplar, the Billingsgate site is earmarked for a major mixed-use scheme including up to 4,000 homes, part of a wider east-London housing pipeline close to Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs. For the City Corporation and its partners, this is the broader prize: markets out, flats, offices and culture in, with the Royal Docks acting as the new working backyard that keeps London’s kitchens supplied.
Not everyone is convinced. Campaigns earlier this year highlighted anxiety among smaller traders and their customers, particularly in east London, about losing the familiar Billingsgate site and the sense of community built up around it. A report cited in objections to the original closure plan noted that Billingsgate still supplies up to 11% of all fish consumed in London and the South East, despite long-term declines in volumes. Food-poverty charities also warned that any disruption or cost increase in the wholesale chain could hit poorer households hardest.
Supporters of the Royal Docks move counter that a modern, consolidated site will make the markets more resilient, not less. New buildings should be more energy-efficient, cheaper to run per tonne of produce, and easier to service by electric vehicles and river freight — all of which could help keep down long-term costs in a volatile food market. Newham’s leadership, for its part, sees the arrival of New Smithfield and New Billingsgate as a cornerstone of wider Royal Docks regeneration, alongside existing anchors such as ExCeL, the University of East London and London City Airport. The area already has a £300-plus million public investment programme behind it and a long-term ambition to deliver tens of thousands of jobs and homes.
There are, however, real transition risks. Traders will have to invest in new units, equipment and logistics routes. Some smaller firms may choose to retire or relocate elsewhere rather than make the jump to Albert Island. And Newham residents will want reassurance that the benefits — jobs, training and improved public realm — outweigh the extra lorry movements, noise and early-morning traffic that come with a wholesale market.
Politically, the move marks a compromise after a turbulent few years. The City’s decision in 2024 to scrap the Dagenham plan and initially propose closing Smithfield and Billingsgate outright with no direct replacement sparked anger from councils, MPs and traders, and prompted legal and parliamentary challenges. The Royal Docks proposal allows the City to proceed with redeveloping its central sites while still offering a dedicated new base “within the M25”, as previously promised, rather than dispersing traders entirely.
For Londoners, the outcome will be felt not just in the price and provenance of meat and fish, but in the changing shape of the city. One set of historic halls becomes a museum and cultural quarter; a waterside site in Docklands turns into a new industrial food hub; and an East End waterfront gains thousands of homes where lorries once queued for fish auctions. If Parliament approves the enabling legislation and Newham grants planning consent, the Royal Docks will become, quite literally, where London’s daily market run now ends.
The next two to three years will decide how smoothly that story unfolds: how quickly detailed designs are drawn up, which developer is chosen, what support packages traders receive, and how the markets’ unique atmosphere is carried over to a brand-new home. What is certain is that, for the first time in centuries, the answer to “Where does London get its meat and fish?” is about to change.