Wimbledon fans will turn to tennis this week, but for those running the world’s oldest and most prestigious grand slam, the actual high stakes contest will not be unfolding in Grass, but will be unfolding at the Royal Courts in London on Tuesday and Wednesday.
On one side of the legal battle is the campaign group Save Wimbledon Park. On the other side is the All-England Lawn Tennis and Crockett Club, a judicial review of the ambitious expansion plan.
The £200 million ($272.9 million) expansion aims to increase daily capacity from the current 42,000 to 50,000 people, upgrade facilities, and move qualifying rounds on-site to reflect the Australian, France and the US opens.
This is the latest phase of a long-standing battle that divided the “village” in southwest London, home to the championship since 1877.
Last September, AELTC secured planning permission from the London Bureau to triple the size of the main site, including 39 new courts, including 8,000-seat show courts, by tripling the size of the main site and redeveloping the old golf course in Parkland, which it already owns.
The plan is supported by several key players, including Novak Jjokovic, as well as 62% of the 10,000 residents of Merton and Wandsworth. According to AELTC, London Borough, which shares the new site, also supports the scheme.
“Our confidence in the development and proposals we’ve been working on over the years is as strong as ever,” Wimbledon Tournament Director Jamie Baker told Reuters.
“In order for the championship to remain in its position and bring all the benefits to stakeholders, including the local community, it is important that they can hold tournaments on one site and put all the evidence together.”
However, this week’s judicial review will determine whether the GLA’s decision to grant planning permission is illegal.
Development opponents, including Thelma Ruby, a 100-year-old former actress who lives in a flat overlooking the park, and West Hill ward councillor Malcolm Grimston, said the club’s plans would cause environmental damage and major disruption to the area.
“It’s crucial to move forward not only for yourself, but for the entire planet and future generations,” Ruby told Reuters.
“I overlook this beautiful landscape. There are all sorts of contracts that you say you shouldn’t be based on it, but the Tennis People (AELTC) have this unnecessary plan that admits to cutting down all these glorious trees that hurt wildlife.
“They use concrete and build roads, they contaminate trucks and let them pass through windows every 10 minutes.
Save Wimbledon Park said that when he purchased a freehold of Wimbledon Park Golf Course from the Wimbledon Park Golf Council in 1993 for £5.2 million, he was unable to consider a contract agreed by AELTC to the contract agreed by AELTC.
AELTC paid the reported £63.5 million to purchase a golf club lease. This was scheduled to run until 2041.
The Campaign Group also believes that GLA has failed to consider the statutory public recreation trust status of the land.
“It’s not the resentment against the AELTC that’s driving this down, because some of the benefits, such as the extension of the lake, are realistic,” Grimston told Reuters.
“The problem is to raise the footprint of the current championship and change what feels very much in the countryside of England, and the calm pace of life into the industrial facilities that dominate the lake landscape.
“That is why it is classified as a Metropolitan Open Land, which is equivalent to the green belt that has been protected for decades under British programming law.
The AELTC says the plan will improve the park’s biodiversity and return some of it to public use.
“The London Wildlife Trust supports the plan, and they have been scrutinizing our analysis and expert views for hours,” said Dominique Foster, director of Corporate Affairs at AELTC.
“We know that this expansion will have a huge benefit to biodiversity, but golf courses are not good for biodiversity.”
