At the hustings held on 16th April 2024 for the Greater London Authority May 2nd elections, each candidate was asked:
“Do you support the plans by the All England Tennis Club to build on part of Wimbledon Park?”
All five candidates were united in their opposition to AELTC’s plans.
Leonie Cooper, the current GLA representative for Wandsworth and Merton, said:
“We need to make sure that the decision taken is the right decision for local people, particularly on the Wandsworth side where the construction phase will blight lives all the way from the Wandsworth one-way system down to the park. It is not a proposal I can support. It will create an industrial wasteland from a Capability Brown landscape and I will continue to speak against it at City Hall to all the right people.”
The five candidates who spoke were:
Labour: Leonie Cooper
Conservative: Lee Roberts (parliamentary candidate, standing in for Ellie Cox who could not attend)
Green: Philippa Maslin
Liberal Democrats: Sue Wixley
Reform: Tania Marszalek
The meeting also marked the first appearance of a brand new Save Wimbledon Park leaflet, designed to encourage local people to register their opposition to AELTC’s plans via the GLA Planning website.
