After more than three centuries in the heart of London, Covent Garden Market - one of central London's best known landmarks - has moved to its new home at Nine Elms, two and a half miles (4 milometres) from its original site.

Old Covent Garden was being slowly strangled to death by the daily traffic james converging on a site chosen in the days of the horse and cart and found difficulty in handling container traffic from other parts of Europe.

New Covent Garden which was officially opened on Monday (11 November) can handle a million tons of fresh produce a year on its sixty-eight acre complex with easy access by river, rail or road. The complex has parking space for two thousand cars and a multi-storey car park which can hold nearly six hundred cars.

The Fruit and Vegetable Market and the Flower Market are equipped with forklift trucks and other modern equipment and the traditional basket, carried on the heads of Covent Garden porters, is vanishing for good.

The Market is well provided with bars, restaurants and cafes for its worker many of whom say that they are still unaccustomed to the modern design and layout of the complex and miss the homeliness of Old Covent Garden.