Seven Dials Covent Garden is a unique quarter of London whose star-shaped layout remains as constructed in the early 1690s. It was brought back to life largely through the dedication of the Seven Dials Trust, working in partnership with the local authorities and landowners for nearly forty years.

03 August 2018 – Westminster Extra: A plaque for two pioneering midwives, Zepherina Veitch and Dame Rosalind Paget, has been unveiled outside their former 19th century training hospital.

Without any accompanying signage, fluorescent blue rings have appeared on three of London's most prominent columns - in the City, in Covent Garden and just off the Mall. They could be mistaken for those ultraviolet fly zappers popular in kebab shops. But this clever installation marks sea level some thousand years hence. The science is not available to make accurate...

Covent Garden Planning

Here are links to a number of publications and articles which provide a broad background to the history of the redevelopment of Seven Dials and Covent Garden as a whole. We've included some documents which we believe are not to be found anywhere else on the web. 

This section starts with currently relevant proposals for traffic management, first proposed by the Trust in 1991, to remove rat-running and through traffic. The traffic management pages are shown for each of the older documents.

Traffic Management

  - The Trust’s Proposals - This sets out a series of options with benefits/disbenefits

  - Stakeholder Presentation Monmouth Street Closure Survey (2016)

  - 7D Servicing Report Final (2019)

  - Seven Dials Traffic Management – Stakeholders Presentation Minutes (2020 February)

  - NRP Decision Report (2020 May)

  - Seven Dials Scheme Key Officers Report (2020 July)

  - Seven Dials Covid Response Scheme Phase 1 - NRP Draft Drawing (2020 July)

  - Notification letter to Seven Dials Occupiers (from Camden) (2020 July)

Older Reports with traffic information

  - 1968 Covent Garden’s Moving:
             3.6 Pedestrian System;
             3.7 Roads;
             3.8 Public Transport.

  - 1971 Covent Garden the Next Step:
             Pages 13-24.

  - 1974 Roads: Traffic & Transport Management

  - 1978 The Covent Garden Action Area Plan (adopted):
             B13 pages 44-49.

  - 1978 The Covent Garden Action Area Plan Statement:
             B13 pages 8-94.

Publications

Covent Garden's Moving**

Greater London Council, London Borough of Camden, City of Westminster

1968

The draft plan drawn up by the consortium of local authorities following the decision to move the wholesale market out if Covent Garden.

  View/Download (PDF)

**Courtesy of  The Covent Garden Area Trust Library.

Covent Garden, the Next Step 

Greater London Council

1971

Revised Plan for the Proposed Comprehensive Development Area.

  View/Download (PDF)

Less Planning, More Happening 

Bieda & Petersson

1976

The formal response to the draft Local Plan by the Covent Garden Forum of Representatives.

  View/Download (PDF)

The Covent Garden Action Area Plan

Greater London Council, London Borough of Camden, City of Westminster

1978

  View/Download (PDF)

The Covent Garden Action Area Plan Statement**

Greater London Council

1978

The adopted Plan.

  View/Download (PDF)

The Rebirth of Covent Garden 

Judy Hillman, for the Greater London Council

1986

Narrative history of the journey towards the adopted Covent Garden Area Plan.

  View/Download (PDF)