Last year, we reported on a thinktank that said housing in London has become ‘impossibly unaffordable’. If you’re a Londoner, you’ll know exactly what we were talking about. This is down to a myriad of factors, of course, but the housing shortage is a big one. A whopping 10,000 proposed new homes in and around Billingsgate Fish Market may be – ahem – a drop in the ocean, but Tower Hamlets Council would no doubt argue that every little helps.
The council has explained, in a new pamphlet promoting the area to developers, that it’s working with the City of London Corporation on the project. And don’t worry: the fish market isn’t disappearing completely; it’s moving from Poplar to the Royal Docks in Newham, as we reported at the end of last year.
Naturally, given the speculative nature of the plans, it’s not clear when development might begin, but the pamphlet suggested that the council is asking developers to consider the site as a prospect for 2026. Councillors for Aspire, the local leading political party, approved the promotional pamphlet last week (on March 24).
Dubbed Future Places, the pamphlet explained that the collaboration would seek to ‘bring forward the redevelopment of the site that will create a significant new mixed-use quarter with improved connectivity between Canary Wharf and South Poplar, providing thousands of homes and jobs’.
It added: ‘This is the single biggest opportunity for growth in the borough, creating a whole new mixed-use neighbourhood that is closely connected to both Poplar and Canary Wharf. The opportunity here is at an early stage and partners have a real opportunity to help shape it right from the start.
‘Working with partners, we want to create a vibrant neighbourhood – stitching residential South Poplar and employment-driven Canary Wharf together, fostering community cohesion and strengthening connections between Poplar’s Chrisp Street town centre and Canary Wharf metropolitan centre.’
Tower Hamlets council is also shopping the area’s Poplar DLR depot and New City College.
Billingsgate opened on Lower Thames Street in 1876 and moved to its current 13-acre Poplar site in 1982. Last year, when we got a whiff that the fish market was set to close by 2028, Time Out headed down there. ‘Billingsgate a small cog in the machinery that keeps the city going,’ wrote Holly Monks. ‘Sure, it can live without it. But when Billingsgate goes, it takes a bit of the fabric of London with it.’
Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman said that the new pamphlet was designed to show developers that the council is ‘open to business’.
Did you hear that Leadenhall Market has announced its full list of markets and dates for 2026?
Plus: Poplar has been named the ‘coolest’ place to live London by the Times.
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