Smithfield and Billingsgate Move to the Royal Docks: What to Plan

Two of London’s oldest wholesale markets are leaving home. Smithfield sells meat, Billingsgate sells fish, and both are due to move to one new market at Albert Island, in the Royal Docks. If your van is at either market before dawn, or you trade from a stand there, the move will change how your week runs. Here is what has been decided as of 31 October 2026, what hasn’t, and what you can plan now without guessing.

What has been decided

The City of London Corporation runs both markets today. In November 2024 it dropped its plan to move them to Dagenham Dock: inflation and the rising cost of construction had made it unaffordable. Instead, it agreed financial support for the traders to move to new premises of their own choosing. Since then:

• A preferred site. On 3 December 2025 the traders, the City and the Greater London Authority named Albert Island, in the Royal Docks in Newham, as the preferred site for both markets together. It sits next to London City Airport.
• The current sites until at least 2028. The City says traders will stay at Smithfield and Billingsgate until at least 2028.
• Run by the traders, not the City. The GLA, which owns the land, plans for a development partner to design, fund and build the new market, and says that developer will be the traders’ new landlord. The markets will be called New Smithfield and New Billingsgate.
• Most traders intend to move. In December 2024 Smithfield’s tenants’ association said 70% of its traders intend to move together, and those who don’t will pass their trade to other Smithfield traders. The same day, Billingsgate’s traders’ association said 90% of its traders had indicated they will keep trading when the current site closes.

New Spitalfields, London’s wholesale fruit and veg market, is not part of this move.

What is not decided yet

The move needs two things it doesn’t have yet.

• An Act of Parliament. The City of London (Markets) Bill would end the City’s legal duty to run markets on the two sites. It was deposited in November 2024 and went before an opposed bill committee on 23 and 24 June 2026. As of 31 October 2026, Parliament lists it at report stage in the Commons, with no date set. It still has to finish in the Commons and pass the House of Lords before it can become law.
• Planning permission from Newham. The London Borough of Newham has to give permission for the markets to operate on the new site. The GLA’s timetable from March 2026 pencils in a planning application in 2026–27, a start on site in 2027–28 and an opening in the late 2020s, and says these are forecasts, subject to change.

The date is the part everyone wants, and it is the least certain. IanVisits reported that evidence given to the committee in June 2026 put the move at the end of 2029. Time Out reported the same month that the new market is due to be operational by 2029, provided the bill receives Royal Assent by mid-2027. So watch the bill. If it hasn’t received Royal Assent by the summer of 2027, the condition behind 2029 hasn’t been met.

The new market is still to be designed, too. When the site was named, Billingsgate’s traders’ chairman, Tony Lyons, said there is “more work ahead of us to design a new, modern market”. Trading hours, parking and loading are details to wait for, not to guess.

Your buying run

If you buy at either market, the first thing that changes is the drive. Whether the Royal Docks is nearer or further than today’s market depends entirely on where your unit is.

So drive it once, at the hour you actually buy, on a normal weekday. Time it door to door, there and back. That one number decides most of what follows: when your buyer has to leave, when they are back, when packing starts and when your first van can go.

Put road charges into the same sum. At the June hearing, the chairman of the Smithfield Market Tenants’ Association raised access to central London because of the Congestion Charge, and road closures that affect deliveries, IanVisits reported. If today’s run crosses the charging zone, check whether the new one does. Our post on the Congestion Charge for delivery vans sets out what it costs a van.

Cut-offs and delivery windows

Your customers’ cut-off is the last moment you can take an order and still buy for it. If you buy at the market for tomorrow’s orders, work backwards from the first delivery:

• the start of your first delivery window;
• when the van must leave to make it;
• how long packing takes;
• when the buyer is back from the market, and when they must leave for it;
• the time you need to add up the orders before the buyer goes.

If the new drive adds forty minutes, something has to move: an earlier cut-off, a later first window, or both. If it saves time, you may be able to offer a later cut-off, which matters to a kitchen that orders after service. Our guide to order cut-off times goes through the sums.

Don’t change everything at once, and not in the week of the move itself. Move the cut-off, let it settle, then look at the windows.

Telling your trade customers

Your customers don’t need the history of the bill. They need to know what changes for them, and when.

• Tell them early, but only what is certain. Something like: “The markets are due to move, not before 2028. We’ll give you plenty of notice of any change to cut-offs or delivery times.”
• Give a date, in writing. When a cut-off or a delivery window changes, say from which day, a few weeks ahead.
• Say what stays the same. The same products, the same people, the same number to call. A change that is explained is rarely a problem. A surprise at the back door is.
• If you sell from the market, your buyers will need the new address, your new hours and how to get there. Tell them as soon as you know, and again a week before.

Keeping supply steady

The traders’ associations say the trade as a whole will carry on. Your supply, though, comes from particular traders, and that is where to plan.

• Ask each trader you buy from whether they are moving. If not, ask who will take over their trade.
• For your top lines, the cuts or species most of your sales depend on, know your second source before the move, not during it.
• Write down what you buy from whom, and in what usual quantity. A move is when the habits nobody wrote down get lost.
• If you buy fish, follow the Billingsgate side closely. One concern raised at the committee was that Billingsgate could close before Albert Island is ready. IanVisits reported that the committee chair secured an agreement from the City’s representative that fish traders would be supported if the new site opens late.

Three things will tell you the date is getting real: the bill’s report stage in the Commons, a planning application to Newham, and the choice of the developer who will build the market.

Where Supligo fits

Supligo won’t choose your traders or drive your vans. It keeps the times your customers order by in one place. Each customer orders from your own ordering page, which shows their delivery days, a countdown to your cut-off and the delivery time slots you offer, so when the buying run moves and you change a cut-off or a slot, the new time is on the page they order from. You set up your vans with their delivery areas and departure times, and when a van leaves, each customer is emailed that their order is on its way, with when to expect it. More on the delivery features.