Smithfield Market looks set to leave historic site under merger plans

London's historic Smithfield Market looks set to leave Farringdon after officials agreed a plan to consolidate it with Billingsgate and New Spitalfields markets in a new 100-acre site.

A livestock market has been based on the site in north London since the late middle ages, and the current Grade II-listed building, designed by Sir Horace Jones, was completed in 1868.

Billingsgate fish market and New Spitalfields fruit, vegetable and flower market left the city in the 1980s and 1990s, moving to Poplar and Leyton respectively.

The City of London Corporation has agreed a proposal to consolidate the three markets and relocate them to a single site that would include an apprenticeship school for fishmongers and butchers.

Commercial property consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton has been tasked with identifying a suitable site of approximately 100 acres or smaller sites in close proximity.

A feasibility study and consultation will be held by the City of London Corporation.

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