Land for Wimbledon expansion subject to 150-year-old restrictions, court told

Land earmarked for the expansion of the Wimbledon tennis site is subject to restrictions on how it can be used under the terms of a more than 150-year-old law, the High Court has been told.

The All England Club is in a legal row with campaign group Save Wimbledon Park over its plans to almost triple the size of the site on the land of the former Wimbledon Park Golf Club.

The plans, approved by the Greater London Authority in 2024, would involve the construction of 38 new tennis courts and an 8,000-seat stadium on the site, enabling the club to host Wimbledon qualifiers.

SWP claims 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”.

Lawyers for the group are arguing at a hearing in London that this trust existed when the land changed hands in the 1960s and when the club purchased the freehold to the land in 1993.

Barristers for the club claim that the land was never subject to a trust and that if it was, it did not survive when the freehold was purchased.

The club has accepted that a trust’s existence would interfere with the proposed development.

Jonathan Karas KC, for the club, said in written submissions that it would be “anomalous” if the land was subject to a trust and that if it was, it would be a “substantive change in the status of the land”.

He said: “The golf course land has at all times been treated in practice as private land let to a private club. It was sold to (the All England Club) on that basis.

“It has never been laid out as a public park, nor have the public been permitted to access it for the purposes of public recreation.”

Mr Karas continued that the Wimbledon Park estate was acquired by the Wimbledon Corporation in 1915, with the golf course land already subject to a lease.

The Wimbledon Corporation then created the public Wimbledon Park in 1927, which was subject to a statutory trust under the 1875 Act.

But Mr Karas said that throughout this period, the golf course was still let to the golf club and therefore was not subject to the same trust.

He continued that this remained the case when the land was transferred to the London Borough of Merton in the 1960s, and when the All England Club acquired the freehold for the land from the council for around £5 million in 1993.

Mr Karas also said that documents from the time of the 1993 purchase “repeatedly asserted that the London Borough of Merton was free to dispose of (the land) as it wished”, and that the golf course “was not burdened with a statutory trust”.

The row is the second legal challenge in relation to the Wimbledon expansion plans, which would also see the construction of seven maintenance buildings, access points and an area of parkland with permissive public access.

Work would also be done on Wimbledon Lake.

In July last year, SWP lost a legal challenge against the GLA over its decision to grant planning permission for the scheme.

It has since been given the green light to appeal against that ruling, which is expected to be heard later this year.

Sasha White KC, representing SWP in the earlier proceedings, said that the trust meant that any plans for the land could not “restrict its use so as not to impair the appreciation of the general public of the extent or openness of the golf course land”.

In written submissions for Friday’s hearing, Caroline Shea KC, for SWP, said the golf course land “remains an open space” and that the club’s case was “flawed”.

She said: “The evidence does not support the sort of differential treatment between the two elements of the park that would be required to raise an inference that the golf course land was not appropriated (as public land) and the park was.

“At its highest, all it does is show that different recreational activities were undertaken by different groups over different areas of the park.”

The hearing before Mr Justice Thompsell is due to conclude on January 23.