A campaign group has been given the green light to launch a second legal battle over the expansion of the Wimbledon tennis site onto land occupied by the former Wimbledon Park Golf Club.
Save Wimbledon Park (SWP) brought High Court legal action against the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC), the venue which hosts the annual tennis tournament, over its plans to build 38 new tennis courts and an 8,000-seater stadium on the site immediately opposite the tennis club.
The AELTC acquired the freehold of the land occupied by Wimbledon Park Golf Club in the 1990s, and eventually purchased the club in 2018 for £65 million, with the course permanently closed in 2023. Planning permission for the expansion of the tennis club were approved in 2024.
But campaigners have argued the land was subject to a statutory trust under a 150-year-old law which restricted its use for ‘publicly accessible leisure and recreation’.
In March, Mr Justice Thompsell ruled the land was “unencumbered by any statutory trust” but the Court of Appeal has granted SWP permission to challenge the ruling.
In a court order, Lord Justice Newey said: “The arguments advanced by the appellant have sufficient substance for the appeal to have a real prospect of success.”
The order states that the appeal is expected to last three days, with SWP saying the hearing is expected to be held in 2027.
SWP said on Wednesday [July 22] that the All England Club “has been saying in public and to their members that proceeding with their plans was a foregone conclusion” but the Court of Appeal’s decision showed this to be “wishful thinking”.
A spokesperson for the All England Club said the decision was “disappointing news”, but it was “confident that the Court of Appeal will recognise the strength of the High Court ruling, which found by a wide margin that the golf course land had never been held under a statutory trust”.
They said: “The vast majority of local people simply want us to get on and deliver the significant community benefits on offer as soon as possible and they will naturally be disappointed that this decision will inevitably lead to further delays. It is firmly in the public and local community’s interest that the scheme is delivered in full.”
Barristers for SWP told the High Court in January that a statutory trust exists under the Public Health Act 1875, meaning the land must be used “for the purpose of being used as public walks or pleasure grounds” and therefore the development could not go ahead. Lawyers for the club said the land was never subject to a trust and, if it was, it did not survive the club’s 1993 purchase of the freehold.
Mr Justice Thompsell found that the land “never became the subject of a statutory trust”, and that even if this was wrong, the land was “never used or laid out for public recreation”.
The Greater London Authority granted planning permission for the expansion in 2024, a decision the High Court upheld last summer following a separate legal challenge by SWP. The Court of Appeal has also given the group the go-ahead to challenge that decision, which is yet to be heard.