Chill winds of competition blow through East End fishmarkets

LONDON LETTER:The City of London is to scrap 'outdated' bylaws, including a requirement for porters to be licensed

BILLINGSGATE FISH market has operated by restrictive practices since Edward III granted market rights to the City of London Corporation in 1327, which prohibited the creation of rival markets within precisely 6.6 miles of the city.

The distance was carefully chosen, since six and two-thirds miles was deemed to be the distance a person could be expected to walk to market, sell his produce and return to his hamlet in a single day.

In 1699, an act of parliament was passed making Billingsgate “a free and open market for all sorts of fish whatsoever”; although the sales of eels was restricted to Dutch fishermen who then moored on the Thames, in return for their feeding of the city during the Great Fire in 1666.

Until the mid-19th century, fish and seafood were sold from stalls and sheds in Billingsgate dock, although a purpose-built market was built in 1850 in Lower Thames Street, but replaced just a quarter of a century later. In 1982, the market moved out to Canary Wharf.

No longer the greatest fish market in the world, Billingsgate is still, nevertheless, a bustling place, particularly on Tuesdays and Fridays, when customers can reserve fish from 4am, but cannot buy and take it away until 5am. By 7am, the business of the day is, to all extents and purposes, over.

On Monday, the City of London markets committee decided that bylaws, some dating back to the 1870s, should go, including one that demands that all porters working at Billingsgate are licensed by the corporation.

In the eyes of the corporation and many of the 54 fish traders at Billingsgate, the licences have allowed the porters and their union, Unite, to operate a closed shop, where some get paid £50 an hour for a 17-hour week.

In the eyes of the 120 porters, the corporation is determined to bring an end to hundreds of years of history, threaten their livelihoods and deprive the public of expertise and knowledge that ensures the market is well run.

Such an argument is met with ridicule by the London Fish Merchants Association, the stallholders’ body.

“Key decisions about buying and selling fish are made entirely by the 40 fish merchants, and not by the porters whose job it is simply to distribute the fish in the market,” says Diana Soltmann. “The porters have no involvement in quality control, health and safety and require no training to obtain a licence.”

David Smith, director of markets at the City of London Corporation, agrees, saying that the Save Billingsgate Market campaign “may be a snappy slogan, but these proposals are no threat to Billingsgate”. He points out that the market retains its right to sell fish until 2080.

However, he says the existing porters are not central to Billingsgate. “The people who will continue to make Billingsgate successful are the fish merchants who employ the porters – the City of London doesn’t employ any porters – and they have asked for the licensing regime to be removed, so that there can be more flexible working practices in the market.”

The porters, who start work before 2am, push trolleys at breakneck speed around the 12- acre market. They are employed on a flat-fee rate by stallholders, topped up by “bobbins” – the price charged to customers to move their purchases.

Twenty thousand signatures were collected in vain before Monday’s vote, among them Tottenham Hotspur manager and East End boy Harry Redknapp and former mayor of London Ken Livingstone.

Porter Dave McCarthy rejected charges that they were paid £50 an hour. “Half that, then half that again and you get closer to the true figure.” However, McCarthy and other porters make the point that Billingsgate is not a closed shop, since the City of London decides how many portering licences it should give out to persons “of good character and fit”. The City of London agrees this is so, but argues that all this shows is that the bylaw “is obsolete, out-of-date, irrelevant in modern times”.

Regardless of the City of London’s right to create more licences, it has not done so for generations, since portering jobs in Billingsgate have, in fact, been handed down from father to son.

Muhammed Ayub, a trader who runs Billingsgate Exotic Fish, claims that East End ethnic minorities have been shut out.

“Tower Hamlets is 70 per cent ethnic minorities and in Billingsgate, there is not a single one among the fish porters.”

Unite official Debbie Sweeney says porters had actively encouraged people “from all parts of our community to apply for some years now, which is more than the City of London Corporation has been doing”.

The future of Billingsgate and the Smithfield meat market has been under question since 2005, with some favouring the creation of smaller but more numerous markets that would sell all types of fresh produce.

In any event, Billingsgate’s lease on its Canary Wharf home expires in 2013, although the porters and many others in east London believe that the City of London Corporation wants to move it outside the M25 and create “a fish cash-and-carry”, rather than anything with a historical pedigree.