Campaigners Urged to 'Make Some Noise' on Wimbledon Park Plan
Latest court hearing due to take place this month
Opponents of the plan demonstrate outside an earlier hearing at City Hall. Picture: Save Wimbledon Park
The long-running battle over the All England Lawn Tennis Club's (AELTC) plans to expand into Wimbledon Park will return to the High Court this month. Last year, the Save Wimbledon Park campaign secured a fresh hearing into whether the former golf course is legally protected for public recreation. The case is scheduled to be heard at the Royal Courts of Justice from 16 to 23 January.
In an email sent to campaign supporters, co-ordinator Simon Wright urged people to turn up on the first day of the hearing and ‘make some noise' in the hope that TV cameras will be present. A significant number of people have turned up to previous court dates with placards and banners attracting national press interest.
This latest hearing concerns a separate but highly significant strand of the legal dispute: whether the land is subject to a statutory trust requiring it to remain open for public use. If the court finds that such a trust exists, it could severely restrict or even prevent AELTC from developing the 27-acre site into a new show court and 38 additional grass courts.
The statutory-trust challenge runs alongside a parallel legal battle over planning permission. In July 2025, the High Court dismissed a judicial review brought by campaigners and upheld the Greater London Authority's decision to approve the £336m expansion. However, in November the Court of Appeal granted permission for that ruling to be challenged, meaning the planning aspects of the scheme also remain unresolved.
CGI of the aerial view of the completed scheme. Picture: AELTC
Together, the two cases mean AELTC's expansion plans are now tied up in the courts with no clear timeline for when construction might begin. The club maintains that the project will open up large areas of parkland to the public for the first time in a century and is confident the courts will ultimately allow the scheme to proceed. Campaigners argue that the plans would cause irreversible harm to a Grade II* listed historic landscape and breach long-standing protections on the land.
Judgments on both cases are expected later in the year.
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