Hawley Wharf

HAWLEY Wharf – a 10 year, £500m-plus redev­el­opment on canalside land ravaged by fire – is set to open this summer.

But owner LabTech says due to chang­ing consumer habits, the four-storey covered market in Camden Town will have the number of floors for stalls reduced by 75 per cent.

Instead, two areas will focus on “experiences” and another floor made up of places to eat and drink.

Set to welcome visitors by the end of August, the original plans were for a larger number of retailers, crafts studios and stalls set over all four floors, replacing and expanding the original market space lost to fire.

LabTech owns the Stables, the Lock and the Buck Street markets as well as Hawley Wharf – and director Maggie Milosavljevic said the loss of visitors to the high streets meant Hawley Wharf needed to offer something different.

“There isn’t going to be as much retail as originally hoped,” she said.

“We are seeing an increase of start-up businesses which we felt would not be suitable to go into Hawley Wharf – they are more suited to Buck Street or Camden Market.

“The footfall isn’t here and we do not think it would be for stalls selling items such as jewellery. It would be diluting what we offer already and would become repetitive.”

She added: “Instead, we have looked at a different approach, considering what activities bring people in and make them want to stay. Now, in the last six weeks, occupancy of Hawley Wharf has gone from 10 per cent to 90 per cent.”

Maggie Milosavljevic

The wharf includes nearly 200 new homes, 60 places to eat with two new rooftop restaurants, and more than 150 shops and new co-working offices.

Other attractions include a farmers’ market and a deal with the cinema group Curzon to open on site.

The strategy is similar to a plan for the Stables where a Judge Dredd-themed games area is due to open. Ms Milosavljevic said customer numbers were rising gradually towards pre-pandemic levels – but the make-up of where visitors come from had changed.

“The loss of international tourists has not hit Camden, it is somewhere that is on every teenager’s bucket list,” she said.

“While tourists cannot fly in, Londoners and people from across the UK cannot fly out.”

The ‘Camden Fire’ in 2008

This has meant a greater number of Londoners are coming to the markets, she said. Market Tech figures show that in 2019, 90 per cent of visitors were tourists, while 10 per cent lived locally.

But Ms Milosavljevic said that had changed, adding: “Footfall at the moment is 50 per cent of its original but, within that, half are local visitors. “It is our job to make sure the content here is what people want and that we maintain the idea that markets are for people who live here.”

Ms Milosavljevic added that they had worked to make sure traders did not go out of business while closed. She said: “We suspended rents and have now put them back to 20 per cent of previous levels. We have 90 per cent of the traders still with us. It has been tough, but we have helped. If there are no traders, there is no market.”