London Tory MP to call for government to block £100m expansion of Wimbledon’s All England club
A senior London Tory MP is set to call on the government to block a £100m expansion of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC), which would see a new 8,000-person stadium built for the Wimbledon Championships.
Wimbledon MP Stephen Hammond told Morning Wire that the proposed development would come “at the expense of local people” and that he will formally request the government and Sadiq Khan to “review” the application if it gets council approval.
The club’s bid to build 39 new tennis courts moved a step closer to approval on Wednesday, after Merton Council cleared the path to water down a previous agreement to not build on the Wimbledon Park Golf Course.
The development would also see the opening up of a public park for much of the year on what is now land exclusively used by the members of the Royal Wimbledon golf club.
The AELTC originally bought the golf course freehold from Merton Council in 1993 for £5.2m on the grounds that it would be kept intact, with the local authority placing a “covenant” on the sale that would stop any major developments.
The Labour-led Merton Council has now voted to say the covenant “needs to be respected” instead of that it needs to be “enforced” as Tory councillors were calling for, leading to speculation that the application will soon be voted through the council.
“A legal covenant is not a material planning consideration in a planning application assessment,” a Merton Council spokesperson said.
The AELTC spent £65m to acquire the land from the golf club in 2018, with bosses from the prestigious club wanting to build 38 courts for Wimbledon’s qualifying rounds and an 8,000-seat “Parkland Court” for the tournament proper.
The new show court would be the club’s third largest and would host major matches at Wimbledon every year.
The development has attracted more than 1,000 complaints from locals who are concerned that it would radically alter the area’s landscape.
“We all want Wimbledon to remain the national treasure it is, but not at the expense of local people,” Hammond said.
A spokesperson for AELTC said: “Our proposals are vital to the future success of Wimbledon as one of the world’s most iconic sporting venues, and our ability to be an active contributor to our local community both today and for future generations.
“We care about our role in the community and we continue to engage in discussion with local residents, councillors and other interested groups.
“This project will deliver enduring and sustainable benefit for the community by opening up a large area of private land to become a new publicly accessible 9.4 hectare park, achieving a 10 per cent biodiversity increase that includes the restoration of number of habitats and planting of 1500 trees of a variety of sizes, and an increase in our Urban Greening Factor score to a nearly perfect 0.97.”