The Wards Corner Community Plan
The core aim of the plan is to reflect the almost twenty years of engagement with traders, local residents and other community organisations. Our community-led development will:
- Provide improved trading space for all existing traders and for new small businesses
- Celebrate the unique identity and culture of the market
- Protect the physical heritage of the market, the Wards Corner building and the integrity of the high street
- Create a market that is self-managed by the community
- Establish the area of Seven Sisters as a community ‘gateway’ to Tottenham.
Our proposal will provide:
- 3,113m² of retail/cafe space at ground and first floor levels
- 642.8m² of small business office space on the second floor
- 233.5m² of community space at first and second floor.
from saving the market to shaping its future
We are a collective of residents, traders, architects and community activists working together to champion a community-led future for Wards Corner and Seven Sisters Market.
Over the past two decades, community campaigns and organisations (including Save Latin Village) have fought to protect the cultural, social and economic value of Seven Sisters Market and to raise awareness of the rights of the local Latin American community. In 2016, this collective effort successfully defeated the Compulsory Purchase Order, preventing the demolition of the market—a recognised community and architectural asset, supported by the UN and home to one of the largest concentrations of Latin American businesses in the UK.
Today, the next chapter of this story is being co-created. Architecture 00, the design practice leading the permanent market project, is working alongside the Wards Corner Community Benefit Society (CBS), Unit 38—an architectural cooperative that has its origins in Seven Sisters Market—and Places for London to develop the design of the permanent market. Together, we are co-producing a long-term vision with the market traders themselves, ensuring that the future of Wards Corner continues to be shaped by the people and communities that have sustained it for generations.
Listening, Learning and Co-Producing
The development of the Community Plan has been an iterative process, initiated in 2007 and informed by nearly two decades of campaigning. The Plan emerged from a strong and widely shared desire to retain and enhance Seven Sisters Market and the surrounding independent businesses that serve low-income, diverse ethnic and migrant communities.
Over the years, numerous consultation events and community engagement activities have informed successive iterations of the Community Plan. The current design reflects the experiences and aspirations of market traders, local businesses, residents and many others, while also responding to evolving policy contexts around local economies, housing and community infrastructure.
Today, in parallel with the technical design process led by our partner organisations, we continue to engage the community through a series of drop-in sessions known as Urban Rooms, or La Salita Urbana. These sessions are an opportunity to understand what local people want from the Wards Corner Community Space that we manage, what activities, services and opportunities they would like to see there, and how we can help make these aspirations possible.
At the same time, La Salita Urbana seeks to celebrate and share the history of Seven Sisters Market while opening up conversations about its future. Through these ongoing dialogues, we aim to understand what people would like to see in the permanent market, ensuring that community knowledge, ideas and lived experiences continue to validate, challenge and inform the design process as it evolves.