Brad Pace longs for a Fish Market of lobster like proportions – not the week old carp that we currently get served up.

A couple of weeks ago tenants at the Sydney Fish Market knocked back a $40m redevelopment plan that included $20m of State Government funding. Rather than create a new complex, they’ve decided to give the joint a paint job and pour some more concrete in to the potholes in the car park.

This leads me to pose a simple question.

Just how shit do the Sydney Fish Markets have to get before they redevelop them?

Prior to moving to Sydney, the idea of a Fish Market in the centre of town took me as wonderfully exotic. I pictured this bustling place offering masses of varieties of creatures from the sea. I envisaged a market filled with cigarette-toting fishmongers spruiking their wares and an open auction ring heaving to the sounds of bids for marlin, sharks and abalone.

I though it’d be like a market in Hong Kong. But better. Because it was in Sydney. That crazy place where there’s a surf beach ten minutes from town and where people think nothing of knocking back a kilo of prawns on their lunch break.

In the Fish Market of my mind, people would travel from far and wide to buy a full snapper and a dozen oysters virtually straight off the boat. They’d then take that snapper down to an onsite barbecue and cook it whilst looking over Sydney Harbour. Washing it down with a beer they’d look at the view in front of them, taste the freshness of their lunch and say “Man, the Fish Markets are awesome.”

What a massive disappointment.

The Sydney Fish Market that I actually discovered was nothing more than a glorified food court. And not even a good one. It consisted of a dirty great big bitumen car park, a crappy little shopping complex consisting of five fish vendors and an outdoor seating area that could double as a modern art piece called “Bird Shit on Concrete.”

There was no life, no visible fishmongers, no barbecues and not even a decent view – despite a map telling me we were most definitely still on the harbour. I figured it would only be a matter of time before they fixed the place up.

But that was over ten years ago and things have only got worse.

The bitumen car park still remains, but you now have to pay for the privilege of parking in it – even for as little as 10 minutes. Given that the only notable recent development created a series of eating areas with views of nothing other than the car park, maybe they think it’s something special. Trust me, it is not.

Plus a decade ago the saving grace of the market was that it offered something different for food lovers. Whilst the surrounds were rubbish, it still held some excitement for lovers of the piscatorial. But now even that looks to have gone. Half of the current market vendors can be found at your local Westfield. There’s no sense of getting something straight off the boat. No sense that the seafood you’ll buy there is any fresher than from anywhere else.

The modern art piece doubling as an eating area also still remains. Supplemented these days by marauding cassowaries and the smell of festering fish heads. If you could ever find a place to sit (which you generally can’t), you wouldn’t bother anyway.

With a decent backswing, you could knock a 3 iron from the market straight in to the Star City gaming room. Currently that place is getting a $1 billion refurb, yet the fish markets have to make do with a lick of paint and a car park resurfacing.

It’s more than a joke that the vendors knocked back this redevelopment proposal. It’s actually a disgrace. There’s no Melbourne Fish Market. There’s no Adelaide Fish Market. There’s just a Sydney Fish Market. It’s iconic. It creates an allure for those that have never visited of something exciting and unique.

Yet what we currently serve up is actually a steaming turd. As stinky and festering as a month old prawn. The harbourside site it sits on, the Sydney residents who shop there, the tourists who visit it and the people who work there deserve so much better. Sydney deserves so much better. Fix it up.

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