The bustling hub off of Kingsland High Road, Ridley Road Market, has been occupied by the local community since the 31st of March this year. Dating back to the 1880s, Ridley Road market was originally a social and commercial hotspot for the area’s predominantly Jewish and later Caribbean communities. It was a target of the notorious fascist Oswald Mosely, who was punched to the ground by counter-activists defending the market when he staged one of three racist marches there in 1962. Ridley Road Shopping Village Traders Association’s Chair, Peter Dissi, said that Ridley Road Market is today the “beating heart” of the high road, a social and cultural cornerstone of the longstanding Black and immigrant community in Hackney.
Though the outdoor private market is owned by Hackney Council, the covered part of the market is privately owned by the offshore company Larochette Real Estate, who have made several attempts to force traders to leave their premises since they bought the area in 2016. This year, the closure was claimed to be due to the Metropolitan police’s recommendations for community safety, which the Met has denied.
The owner of Larochette, Guy Ziser, claimed the market would reopen. But previous attempts to convert the site into luxury flats and shops suggest that there is significant interest in the development of the land at the cost of this cultural gem of Dalston. Due to gentrification, the population of working class black and Turkish residents in Hackney has steadily declined since 2012, as rising house prices have made life significantly harder for renters. Luxury flats and chains are increasingly replacing community-centred businesses in the social hubs of Hackney.
The Save Ridley Road campaign has staged community letter-writing, talks on Black British Feminism and Pan-Africanism, along with art and music workshops in order to bring numbers and energy to the campaign. As of September 2026, Asset of Community Value (ACV) status was restored for the shopping village, protecting the area based on “social and community value”. Furthermore, £19,000 has been generated has been raised to support the legal fees of traders.
However, the campaign is ongoing. Having previously had ACV status, the Ridley Road campaigners want a more long-term, radical solution, calling for the shopping village to be brought into community ownership to permanently prevent “gentrification” and “profiteering”, and the “over-policing” of Black and working-class members of the community, in the words of a Ridley Road trader last month. Community ownership would mean that the traders who work in the shopping village would collectively own the rights to and make decisions about the precinct, without any external state or private group having input over the area.
Zoe Garbitt, the new Green Party Mayor of Hackney, was part of previous campaigns to “save Ridley Road” and was instrumental in granting the ACV status to the area. But whether she will aid Ridley Road traders in obtaining their more ambitious demands remains yet to be seen.
