Privatisation of street food markets in London: curating markets and place

In a recent edition of The Guardian, there was a story about the privatisation of Berwick Street Market, an historic London market in the heart of Soho. Stallholders are protesting at the council’s decision to bring in a “commercial operator” to manage the market. Why would the council would do that? Not only for efficiency reasons, but as a councillor mentions, the market needs to “wash its face”. Bringing in a market organiser for Berwick Street is a way of changing the look and feel of the market and the area; as a market campaigner says in the article “the reinvention of markets has got to be done in a curated way”.