The owners of Wimbledon tennis have announced they will go to the High Court to prove that their controversial plans to expand onto a neighbouring golf course are legal.
The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC), which runs the annual championships, secured planning permission for its project from City Hall in September. The scheme will see the tournament’s footprint almost triple in size, with 38 new courts and an 8,000-seater stadium set to be constructed.
But in a fresh twist on Wednesday, the club revealed that it wanted to “resolve” lingering questions over the plan’s legality, which opponents of the project had been looking at as a potential avenue to block it.
At the heart of those questions is the issue of whether the Wimbledon Park Golf Club land is held subject to a statutory trust. Campaigners against the scheme hope to follow an example set in Shropshire last year, where a housing development was overturned on the grounds that a statutory trust created in 1926 gave residents rights of recreation over the land.
Before taking a decision on the application earlier this year, City Hall sought its own legal advice on the issue, which found that “the land is held subject to a statutory trust for its use for public recreation”. City Hall’s officers warned however that “the matter is far from clear cut, and there are arguments pointing in both directions”.
In a surprise move, AELTC has now revealed that rather than wait for the project’s opponents to launch a legal action on those grounds, the club will instead proactively take the issue to court itself.
An AELTC spokesman said: “Last month, the Greater London Authority (GLA) formally issued planning permission for our application to transform the former Wimbledon Park Golf Course. These plans will secure the future of one of the world’s most treasured sporting events and deliver year-round benefits for the local community in Merton, Wandsworth and across London.
“The possibility of a statutory trust on the land was raised by the GLA in their officers’ report and the issue was dealt with appropriately by the GLA in granting planning consent. 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, at this stage, is to put the matter before the court to establish that there is no trust over the land. Today we have issued a letter before action in order to begin this court process. We believe that having this matter resolved is an important step that will deliver reassurance to us and to the local community.
“This marks the next phase of our long-term project that will maintain our position at the pinnacle of tennis and to deliver year-round benefits for local people with 27 acres of newly accessible parkland for everyone to enjoy.”
In November, the campaign against the project, Save Wimbledon Park, announced that it had secured the status of a limited company, in order “to progress any future legal action that may be advised”.
The new company said it had already instructed the Putney-based firm of solicitors Russell-Cooke to advise on its legal strategy for challenging AELTC.
A spokesman for Save Wimbledon Park Ltd said: “We have been pointing out for a considerable time that the statutory public recreation trust on which AELTC hold the heritage golf course land is a fundamental block on the proposed development, and that AELTC need to think again.
“We are glad to hear that AELTC now recognise our point of view and note that they wish to take this to litigation rather than engage in any discussion.”
