Game, set, appeal: Wimbledon’s £200m expansion hits the court
The battle over Wimbledon’s £200m expansion has reached match point: while tournament chiefs aim for a net gain of 39 new courts, a campaign group is fighting back by dragging the planning decision to the Court of Appeal.
The All England Lawn Tennis Ground plans to build 39 new tennis courts and an 8,000-seat stadium on the former Wimbledon Park Golf Club site, at a cost of £200m.
The planning permission was rejected by Wandsworth Council in 2023, but as the majority of the site is within Merton Council boundaries, it was passed in September 2024 by Jules Pipe, London’s deputy mayor for planning.
Since that decision, campaign group Save Wimbledon Park (SWP) has been fighting this planning application in the courts. The case went to the High Court last year, which resulted in a dismissal.
SWP applied to the Court of Appeal, which granted, and the parties are now set for a six-day hearing starting on Friday.
The central dispute is whether the Golf Course Land was subject to a statutory trust for public recreation, with a 1875 law serving as the smoking gun. But the case raises complex issues dating back to 1915, when the Wimbledon Park Estate was acquired by Wimbledon Corporation.
The SW19 giant paid £65m in December 2018 to buy out the remaining lease of Wimbledon Park Golf Club, clearing the way for development.
According to legal documents seen by City PM, the campaign group argues that during a local government shuffle in 1965, the golf course land was “locked” into a trust that can only be used for public purposes.
Wimbledon’s court documents state that this claim is a faulty interpretation of the law, emphasising that the AELTC has owned the land as a private site for 30 years after buying it for £5.2m in “good faith”.
The club proposes calling Chris Gorringe, who was its chief executive at the time of the acquisition until 2005, as a witness to give evidence about what Wimbledon did or didn’t know.
Upcoming local elections
The Court of Appeal will be expected to hand down its decision in the next few months.
But this could fall around the time of May’s local election, which has been tipped to cause a shake-up at Merton Council, with Labour not expected to remain the largest party.
The SWP said in September that the Liberal Democrats, currently the main opposition, had pledged to block the development if they win a majority or “have any say in the matter”.