The next stage in the seemingly endless attempt to rob the Queen Victoria Market of its character and role as a traditional fresh food market has surfaced. Following the approval of a 21 storey building at 432-450 Queen Street, the City of Melbourne has applied to Heritage Victoria to use half the historic 1878 fruit and vegetable sheds (A-E) for hospitality, loading docks and a fenced-off area for storage. Further, the application requests the addition of modified shipping containers or ‘pods’ 2.4m wide by 2.6m high and either 3m or 6m long ‘painted monochromatically in one of three colours: cream, red or grey’. Along with the fencing, the effect would be to radically alter the traditional transparent views across the various stalls, and fundamentally change the market’s mode of operation, replacing the traders’ low-key trestle tables with the fixed ‘pods’.
Studies have consistently shown that visitors value the Queen Vic’s open jumble of spontaneous set ups by stall holders and this would be lost under this proposal. Shipping containers transformed international freight shipping, but they should not be allowed to transform the Queen Vic Market. The RHSV has therefore lodged a submission with Heritage Victoria strongly opposing this application.
Click here to read about the QVM advocacy history.
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