Campaign Group Hopes Wimbledon Expansion Plans Are Called Out

As Great Britain’s Cameron Norrie prepared to be a huge underdog against the heavy favorite Carlos Alcaraz on Centre Court today, a group of 100 or so campaigners from the Save Wimbledon Park group made their presence felt outside the High Court in London to protest against the All England Club’s $270 million expansion plans for the Wimbled site.

The campaigners have raised over £200,000 ( $253,000) to bring a judicial review of t of The Greater London Authority’s decision to rubberstamp AELTC plans to build 39 courts, including an 8,000 seater show court. The hearing takes places on July 8 and 9, just as the business end of the Championships begins to take shape. The last four days of the tournament are taking place in temperatures touching 30 degrees as the latest stage of the battle over the expansion heat up in the Royal Courts of Justice.

Most of the park lies within Merton but a small triangle falls into neighboring borough Wandsworth whose councillors rejected the expansion plans. This meant the umpire’s chair on decision-making was referred to the London mayoral office. The plan was given the go-ahead by the Greater London Authority last September (GLA) whose deputy major, Jules Pipe, pronounced it would bring “significant benefits.”

Although the GLA acknowledged there would be harm to open metropolitan land and a loss of green space, the estimated $450 million in annual and economic benefits, mostly centred within London, was a huge factor in pushing it through.

Save Wimbledon Park’s challenge is not based around the permission of the project, but rather centers on “errors of law and planning policy” in giving it approval. Metropolitan open land is subject to the same protection as green belt and campaigners argue that to give the green light would pave the way for more private commercial developments to trample over other vulnerable spaces.

The sitting judge will also make a decision on whether neglect of the Grade II* registered Park and Garden, a significant heritage site, should have been considered when making the planning decision. It will evaluate whether the proposed private tennis development falls short in offering an ‘alternative sports and recreational’ space for public use.

The AELTC originally submitted the plans in 2021, having finalizing the purchase of the $80,000 leasehold of the former Wimbledon Park Golf Club. It aims to increase ground capacity to 50,000 and bring the qualifying week (currently played at a leased ground in Roehampton three miles away) onsite to give the tournament continuity and quality in terms of player and spectator experience for the whole three weeks. Wimbledon is the only major that doesn’t hold qualifying within the same complex.

The All England Club has always maintained that the greater benefits of the project outweigh the environmental impacts. The club has held numerous walkthroughs of the site with the general public and maintain feedback from forums have been hugely positive about the prospect of a new accessible boardwalk around Wimbledon Park Lake, and community use of the proposed new courts and facilities.

Speaking to me about the overall picture, Corporate Communications Director of the AELTC Dominic Foster reiterated what he told me last year: “Our plans to transform what has been a private members golf course for more than 100 years will maintain Wimbledon’s position at the pinnacle of sport and create year round benefits for local people. The proposals will deliver very significant biodiversity benefits which are endorsed by the London Wildlife Trust.”

During the first week of Wimbledon, campaigners were handing out leaflets that were entitled ‘Love Tennis. Hate Concrete’. SWP claim that the entire area of expansion would be heavily excavated, leading to a 36 per cent loss of biodiversity, a destruction of wildlife and air pollution from construction lorries.

“You could not have a more protected piece of land in London,” said Sascha White KC, representing Save Wimbledon Park. When it acquired the freehold of Wimbledon Park Golf Course in 1993, the AELTC entered into an agreement with Merton Council “preventing the use of the land otherwise than for leisure or recreation purposes or as an open space.” SWP believe that the land should be held in some kind of public trust “requiring it to be kept available for (public) recreational use” in line with the whole of the Park and lake

Russell Harris KC, representing the All England Club, countered by arguing that planning officers acknowledged the trust and covenants, but decided they were not material to the application.

He said the GLA could legally grant permission “even if the development is incompatible with a different, non-planning restriction on the use of the land”.

A written decision on is expected some time in the next few weeks as this latest saga on Wimbledon’s expansion moves towards match point or a deadlock. If SWP’s action is successful on any of its main points, the planning application will be sent back for reconsideration.

The campaign has called it a “David and Goliath” battle. Alcaraz was the giant on the tennis court today with Norrie resigned to his fate. The AELTC are confident of victory but Save Wimbledon Park.