Local residents to contest Wimbledon expansion plan legally

Wimbledon expansion plan heading towards a legal clash with local residents set to contest the plan in courts.

For some time now Wimbledon has talked about expanding its venue and with a formal proposal put forward, it seems like things might get messy. Local residents, environmental and heritage groups are preparing to launch a public relations and legal salvo against Wimbledon’s plans to develop historic Capability Brown parkland into 39 new tennis courts for the championships.

The campaigners claim the All England Lawn Tennis Club’s (AELTC) designs for a new 8,000-seat show court and 38 other grass courts on a golf course next to the world-famous SW19 club breaches a covenant that prevents building on the Grade II* listed parkland.

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When it bought the freehold of the golf course from Merton borough council for £5.2m in 1993, the All England club agreed to a legal covenant “preventing the use of the land otherwise than for leisure or recreation purposes or as an open space”.

The club says it needs to build the new show court on the protected parkland because there is not enough space on its current site, and it urgently requires higher capacity courts to compete with the other grand slam tournaments. The club has promised the campaigners, who number in their thousands and include several prominent London lawyers, that the show court will be “a world-class building matching the beauty of its surroundings and paying tribute to the site’s rich history”.