Trees Glorious Trees - Misinformation ?

In their latest Community Newsletter the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC), have expressed their frustration at what they say is the amount of misinformation circulating about their plans for trees on the site of the former golf club. Save Wimbledon Park (SWP) share their frustration with misinformation with regards to their plans for the Heritage Grade II* Landscape, designed by Capability Brown, designated as Metropolitan Open Land in the North Wimbledon Conservation area where every tree is legally protected.

In order for AELTC to create their Industrial-scale private Tennis Centre complete with an Albert Hall-size stadium, a huge extent of these precious 73 acres will be excavated or filled. The most important topsoil will be disturbed, removing wildlife, bugs, and the roots of trees and shrubs. Where roots are damaged many of the trees and shrubs will suffer and even die.

The AELTC claim that 300 trees will be felled: SWP experts have calculated that at least a further 500 trees and saplings will be uprooted. It’s hard to imagine how anything will survive. In addition, once the bulldozers and chain saws arrive, most of the wildlife will disappear during at least 8 years of work.

There are no trees on the existing site where the Championships take place: trees are anathema to tennis courts. They create shade, drop leaves, move with the wind (creating a distraction to professional tennis players) and are home to wildlife who defecate. They grow in different directions and are unpredictable. Trees also have root systems which may even pop up in unwelcome places under tennis courts!

Given the density of the proposed 38 concrete-surrounded courts, the enormity of the stadium and its basement, the maintenance depot and nine further buildings, there will be little room for significant trees to thrive and survive. AELTC’s plans specify 9.4km of roads and paths making it difficult to see where there would be any room for “clumps of trees” across the site. Brown’s trademark undulating landscape will be wiped out along with the tons of spoil taken from the site in 40,400 lorry movements.

It is heartening to hear that woodland and wet woodland trees will be added at the site boundaries, but it is difficult to imagine that trees will survive anywhere else on the site. Andy Wayro of the AELTC has confirmed that trees would be thinned out after planting, possibly right to the boundary. At the Bank of England site in Roehampton, where the qualifiers currently take place, the site is entirely flat and there are no trees, except at the boundary. Is that what we want for Wimbledon Park?