Private Eye | 8 January 2025
"A SURPRISE twist in the ongoing Wimbledon Park saga.
It seemed to be full steam ahead for plans from the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) to expand on to its neighbouring park, building an 8,000-seat show court along with 38 other courts and ancillary buildings.
Jules Pipe, deputy mayor of London, ruled in September that the Wimbledon Park scheme's "very significant benefits" outweighed any potential harm to the environment.
Local campaigners from Save Wimbledon Park had fought against the AELTC building what they called a "tennis industrial complex" on metropolitan open land. They engaged lawyers who sent a pre action letter in December ahead of a possible judicial review of the mayor's decision. It argued that the GLA decision was wrong in law because it failed to take into account a statutory Public Recreation Trust which covers the land and meant the whole estate should be held as "public walks or pleasure grounds".
Merton council sold the golf course land to the club in 1993, but campaigners believe the land is still covered by a statutory trust. They point to a recent landmark case in Shropshire which saw planning permission for a housing development quashed because a statutory trust from 1926 meant residents still had rights of recreation over the land.
During the Wimbledon Park hearing, City Hall planning officers warned that "the matter is far from clear cut, and there are arguments pointing in both directions".
With the Save Wimbledon Park campaigners threatening to use this point in law to prevent the tennis scheme, the club is now taking preemptive action - going to the high court to gain a ruling that its development plans are legal. Its spokesperson said: "Our position, and that adopted by Merton Council on advice, was and remains that there is not, nor has there ever been, a statutory trust affecting the former Wimbledon Park Golf Course land. In the circumstances, we recognise that the correct thing to do ... is to put the matter before the court to establish that there is no trust over the land."
Watch this space."
