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See this Save Wimbledon Park briefing note on Amendment 222C to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill :

SWP say that the land is protected by a statutory trust, for public recreation, and that the proposed issued the following statement about this second case: “ To resolve the question of whether a statutory trust

the principal JR ground, the irrationality of the GLA’s decision about the effect of the statutory trust The existence of rights of the public, imposed through the statutory trust and the restrictive covenants It is not merely the GLA’s legal advisors and SWP who believe that the statutory trust is a bar to this In their parallel proceedings on the statutory trust, the AELTC have stated: “The application of s.164 [the trust] to the Golf Course Land would be incompatible with the [Wimbledon Park] Project”.

Late on November 3rd Lord Gus O’Donnell, a director of the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) was forced to drop his proposed amendment 250 to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill after receiving strong criticism from peers of all political parties. The amendment sought retrospectively to remove 45 years’ worth of public rights over open spaces, effectively favouring private landowners in general and AELTC in particular. It would have undone 150 years of statutory protection for public land. This decision means that SWP’s legal challenge, scheduled for the High Court in January 2026 remains on track. The amendment would have validated Merton Council’s 1986 lease and 1993 sale of the 73 acre former golf course to AELTC without properly consulting the community, ending the community’s case before it reached court. The full proceedings can be seen on Hansard here, from 21:30 onwards https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2025-11-03/debates/F11F4FDB-B0EB-4DCB-8160-B56FB658BD0F/PlanningAndInfrastructureBill The tireless Kieran McCarthy at Putney News has provided an excellent summary of the debate here https://putney.news/2025/11/04/wimbledon-park-amendment-abandoned-after-peers-condemn-erosion-of-green-space-protection/ Here are some quotes from the key participants: “Amendment 250 seems an undesirable bit of retrospective legislation designed to enable the All England Lawn Tennis Club not to have to negotiate fairly with the people it is disadvantaging as a result of its plans.” Lord Lucas (Conservative) “This amendment has caused substantial concern that it erodes the protection of green space and removes long-standing public rights to green spaces, where the land is sold by a local authority, with or without public consultation.” Baroness Young of Old Scone (Labour) “You cannot make decisions of this enormity without proper, full consultation, listening to voices, hearing what they have to say, responding to them and not just doing a steamroller job, which too many developments seem to want to do.” Baroness Pinnock (Liberal Democrat) “I find it difficult to support an amendment that alters everything across the board. Doing a proper consultation has to be the approach, rather than what is proposed in this amendment.” Lord Cromwell (Crossbench) “From the late 1970s to 2019, 10% of what was public land in Britain transferred into private hands. That is 2 million hectares of land.” Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green) This ill-judged attempt by AELTC suggests a new level of desperation: their position is becoming increasingly untenable. It is fundamentally wrong to use legislation to backdate a change in the law to remove public rights. Perhaps they are not confident in their legal position ahead of the January 2026 court case. Simon Wright, a spokesperson for Save Wimbledon Park said “The wisdom of the combined forces of all parties in the House of Lords is all the more reason for AELTC to talk to the local community to find a way forward acceptable to everyone. In calling for this we have the explicit support of both local MPs, Fleur Anderson (Putney, Labour) and Paul Kohler (Wimbledon, Liberal Democrat).”

Dr Peter Day, also a trustee of CPRE , who took his legal case against Shropshire County Council all

portion of Wimbledon Park they bought from the Council back in 1993 was, at the time, subject to a public trust Supreme Court decision of Day v Shropshire Council, if, at the time of purchase, that was the case, the trust the necessary processes that exist to protect such public rights, by transparently terminating the trust

to challenge the legality of the plan and said: “[The comments made by a senior barrister about the Trust restrictive covenants in which the All England promised not to develop, and the enforcement of the public trust

"The final day of the Wimbledon Park statutory trust trial concluded on Friday with the judge openly

have been aware since early 2023, is the Supreme Court’s unanimous judgment about public recreation trust The public recreation trust status is fundamental to all publicly owned land and open space used for According to the Supreme Court, that is a major problem: the failure means the trust continues in the The effect of the public recreation trust is that it requires the whole area to be available for public And even if it was protected by section 164, a statutory trust never came into effect because it was

in law because it failed: to take into account the implications of the statutory Public Recreation Trust independent legal rights and issues which we can also pursue, regarding both the statutory public recreation trust

Clapham Junction Insider | 28 October 2024 | Cyril Richert " On Friday 27 September, Jules Pipe, London’s Deputy Mayor for Planning, decided to overrule Wandsworth Council’s refusal and the vast opposition from the local residents to allow the extension of Wimbledon Tennis Club into the park. The plans, presented by the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC), aim to expand across Church Road to build an 8,000-seat stadium (104 metres wide and 28 metres high), an additional 38 grass courts, 10 other buildings including a 30,000 sq ft maintenance hub, and 9 km of roads and paths at the former location of the Wimbledon Park Golf Course. The Wimbledon Tennis site would almost triple in size. Merton Council approved the application last year after an extended debate where 6 Labour councillors voted in favour while 4 others (including one Labour, the 2 Liberal Democrats and the single Conservative councillor) voted against. The decision was based on the benefits they think it would generate. In the words of Merton’s officers’ reports, the development would be “inappropriate” and cause “physical harm” to the Metropolitan Open Land, but all of that could be outweighed by the “very substantial public benefits” of the proposal. A few weeks later, Wandsworth Planning Committee had to consider the application too, as the land in question straddles the two boroughs. Councillors took the opposite view and refused planning permission, following the recommendation of Wandsworth’s officers who disagreed with their colleagues from Merton." ... read more about Clapham Junction Insider: City Hall approves the controversial Wimbledon Tennis Club expansion, but legal challenges loom

owned for centuries, and the forthcoming legal action to determine whether Wimbledon Park is a public trust incentivised cash-strapped local authorities to feign ignorance when disposing of land they hold on trust , as decided by the Supreme Court in March 2023, where a local authority had sold land subject to a trust necessary requirements including advertising the fact, the rights of the public under the statutory trust welcome the opportunity to test our long-held view that the land is safeguarded by a statutory recreation trust