Wimbledon at war: Inside the bitter battle between furious locals and Big Tennis

The All England Club’s proposal to build a huge new tennis complex has enraged residents of SW19 - and the off-court match is heating up

Artist's impression of what residents overlooking the park could see if plans go ahead
Artist's impression of what residents overlooking the park could see if plans go ahead Credit: Tom Jamieson and Tyler Comrie

'Isn’t it wonderful?’ Thelma Ruby looks out from the window of her top-floor flat, across the road to the Wimbledon Park Golf Club course. Under a bank of grey clouds, a vista unrolled of unblemished parkland and trees, a glimmer of a lake in the distance.

‘Can you imagine that they’ll be allowed to ruin this view? It’s breaking my heart.’

Ruby, 97 years old, star of the stage, who played Mistress Quickly opposite Orson Welles’s Falstaff, who acted with Topol in Fiddler on the Roof, moved into her flat on Church Road 29 years ago. Each morning she takes breakfast drinking in the view.

‘Why are they doing this?’ she says with a sigh. ‘Well, we know why, don’t we…’

‘They’ are the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC), home of the Wimbledon Championships, whose main gate is 200 yards from Thelma’s apartment block. 

Thelma Ruby in her Wimbledon apartment
Thelma Ruby in her Wimbledon apartment Credit: Tom Jamieson

Last July the club submitted plans to build 38 new grass tennis courts on the golf course, some of them directly below her window. To the right of her view is where the club wants to erect its Parkland Show Court, a 28m-tall, 8,000-seat stadium.

The AELTC says the ambitious new development is necessary to maintain its position at the pinnacle of the Grand Slam circuit. But the plans have provoked a fierce battle between the club and an array of opponents, including local residents’ groups, The Capability Brown Society, CPRE (formerly the Campaign to Protect Rural England), and Thelma Ruby, who has launched her own petition against the proposals.

The landscape in question covers 73 acres, part of a Grade II* Registered Park and Garden, designed by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown for the first Earl Spencer in 1768. It is designated as Metropolitan Open Land, a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation, designated Open Space and within a Conservation Area.

In 1993, the AELTC paid £5.2 million to buy the land from Merton Council. But the sale, which met with fierce opposition from locals, came with a restrictive covenant ‘not to use it except for leisure or recreational purposes or as an open space and not to build on it’. This covenant has proved to be critical.

Views of Wimbledon Park
Views from Thelma Ruby's apartment today Credit: Tom Jamieson

Back then, the Club maintained that the purchase was simply to protect their right to continue using it for hospitality during Wimbledon fortnight. The land was rented back to the golf club on a lease due to expire in 2041.

But in the years since the sale, tennis has changed beyond recognition, in terms of its global coverage, its money- spinning possibilities and the rise of the Big Three – Federer, Nadal and Djokovic.

More than 500,000 people are expected at Wimbledon over the next fortnight; millions more will watch on television. In May, the AELTC posted an operating profit of £43.3 million for the financial year ending July 2021. Revenue climbed to £288 million. Wimbledon is one of the most important events of the sporting summer. It is also one of the most profitable.

In 2018 the AELTC offered the golf club £65 million to buy out its lease, and members, including Ant McPartlin, Declan Donnelly and Piers Morgan, each collected an £85,000 windfall.

The AELTC says its new development will ‘reimagine the historic landscape, retaining ancient and heritage features, views and soils, increase biodiversity and tree cover and enhance free public access to areas of formerly private land’.

It says 38 extra courts are needed to host the tournament’s qualifying rounds, currently played three miles away in Roehampton. Courts and ancillary buildings will be scattered around the site, linked by 9.4km of roadway and hard paving. A spokesperson has said the plans are ‘vital to the future success’ of Wimbledon.

AELTC’s impressions of the new complex: the view from the show court and, below, aerial view
AELTC’s impressions of the new complex: the view from the show court and, below, aerial view Credit: Allies and Morrison/AELTC
AELTC’s impressions of the new complex: bird's eye view
Credit: Allies and Morrison/AELTC

Former British No1 Tim Henman, who is now a board member at the AELTC, told me that from a player’s perspective, the qualifying rounds were currently the Championships’ ‘weakest element’. ‘The potential development will upgrade the facilities in so many ways, first and foremost the courts, but also the locker rooms, the medical facilities, catering… there are so many different elements that need to be improved.’

But not everybody is enthused about this grand expansion. Since last year more than 1,200 people have submitted formal objections via the council’s websites.

Wimbledon Park is an affluent area, with large houses set back behind high hedges. The average house price is £913,000, rising to £4 million and more for those near the tennis club. The local groups fighting the proposals have been able to draw on a rich field of expertise that includes retired financiers, top lawyers, ecologists and the person who once handled publicity for Michael Jackson.

One morning recently I took a walk around part of the proposed site with Iain Simpson, chairman of the Wimbledon Park Residents’ Association, which represents some 10,000 locals. A handful of golfers were walking their bags along a fairway under a desultory sky. Nine holes remain of the original course, and these will close at the end of the year. At the edge of the lake, two geese were shepherding a clutch of goslings into the water. All around was verdant and peaceful. If the AELTC has its way, says Simpson, it would be replaced by what he described as an ‘industrial tennis complex’.

Residents’ group members on the golf course
Residents’ group members on the golf course Credit: Tom Jamieson

‘We’re not against tennis,’ adds Simpson, a tall, rangy, snowy-haired man in his mid-70s who works as a property agent. ‘We love tennis but what we’re anti is the scale of the thing. And it does not respect either the quality of the land or the conditions that are attached to it. It will be an exclusive private club, operating on a commercial basis.’

In March last year, the AELTC held the first of three consultations with the local community, where it first unveiled plans to build an unspecified number of tennis courts. ‘They were very vague,’ Simpson recalls. It was at the second consultation a month later that the AELTC revealed its proposals for a large show court.

‘Boom, just like that,’ Simpson says. ‘That was quite a shock for everyone. And then they were talking about 38 courts, and yet in the first consultation they couldn’t tell you.’ The third consultation was largely a review of the Club’s plans, ‘And nothing had changed.’

Two further meetings with the AELTC followed, the first arranged by the local MP Stephen Hammond at his home and then at the tennis club.

‘It was a pretty frank exchange of views,’ Simpson remembers. ‘We put forward our propositions and complaints. They listened and defended their position and basically nothing happened. We all shook hands and that was it.

‘It would be true to say that most people involved in this campaign don’t really trust what the All England Club has to say. And that’s a terrible indictment of such a prestigious organisation.’

A few days after my meeting with Simpson, I return to the site with Justin Smith, the head of estate development at the AELTC, and Andrew Wayro, the club’s senior landscape designer.

What Simpson had described as an ‘industrial tennis complex’ was now being presented as an Arcadian prospect – ‘tennis in an English parkland’ – a boon to the local community.

The grass was wet underfoot, the old fairways overgrown. If the plan goes ahead, where we were walking would be grass tennis courts, as manicured as the turf of Centre Court. Impeccable, but in no way resembling ‘English parkland’.

Protesters argue that they would lose their life-enhancing views over Wimbledon Park. So are they just Nimbys standing in the way of progress or is Big Tennis bulldozing through its plans and putting profits first?
Protesters argue that they would lose their life-enhancing views over Wimbledon Park. So are they just Nimbys standing in the way of progress or is Big Tennis bulldozing through its plans and putting profits first? Credit: Tom Jamieson

The landscape contains 41 so-called veteran trees that the AELTC are obliged to keep. Wayro points to the oldest oak, dating from Tudor times. As with all the veterans, a ‘root protection zone’ for the oak, extending beyond the canopy growth of the tree, was marked out by a rope, anchored to traffic cones.

Many of the 1,100 trees on the site, Wayro continues, had been planted over the years to frame the fairways. The plan proposes to remove 300 of those trees but plant a further 1,500, scattered about the land ‘very much in the Capability style’.

Cones also mark out the site for the proposed show court, which would be deliberately located, says Wayro, not to disturb the ‘veterans’. He talks about sand martin and kingfisher nesting banks being planted in the reeds around the lake, and aiming for a 10 per cent biodiversity net gain in line with environmental rules, ‘and we’re very comfortable we can achieve that’.

Twenty-three acres of the site, he explains, will be maintained as a public park, with ‘outdoor learning trails’, and a new boardwalk around the lake. A recent addendum of ‘community benefits’ to the planning application includes hosting a ‘community tennis experience’, when residents would be able to play on seven of the 38 grass courts for free from mid-July to mid-September, and an allocation of 500 seats on the Show Court for locals to purchase during the Championships.

The phrase the All England Club uses is ‘reimagining’ Capability Brown’s landscape. ‘We’re not trying to recreate it, that would be impossible,’ Wayro says. ‘It depends where you are on the site, but there will be various pockets that feel very much like historical parkland.’

Yet the centrepiece will be a show court that the AELTC describes as ‘a world-class building matching the beauty of its surroundings and paying tribute to the site’s rich history’.

‘They’ve said they’re going to improve the vista,’ Simpson told me as we walked around the golf course. ‘How do you improve the vista of Grade II historic land by putting up a 28m-high stadium? It will be an eyesore.’

The proposed site stands on Metropolitan Open Land, which enjoys the same protection as Green Belt land. It stipulates that land within an urban area remains permanently open and cannot be built on.

‘That’s a red line for us,’ says Alice Roberts, head of campaigns at CPRE, which is opposed to the AELTC proposals. ‘Those protections are there for very important reasons, partly about recreation and partly about maintaining open spaces for environmental reasons. The public park the AELTC is promising is good, but it’s a relatively small portion of the overall site, and we feel they should be enabling public access throughout, and done in a way that does not involve a permanent stadium.’

Smith declines to say how much the AELTC have invested so far, what the total cost is likely to be if it goes ahead, and what revenue forecasts are. The number of visitors each day during the Championships would rise from 42,000 to 50,000.

Half a million people attend Wimbledon each year
Half a million people attend Wimbledon each year Credit: Getty Images

Local groups protesting against the scheme ‘have their own view’, Smith says. ‘We have met them many, many times. Listened hard. There are far more people who are supportive than aren’t. We’ve had many consultations with the public and generally what we’re planning has been very well received.’ He says that Historic England, The Gardens Trust and the London Wildland Trust are all supportive of the proposals. The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has talked enthusiastically about how the scheme ‘will future-proof Wimbledon for years to come’.

Smith says the development is essential to maintain the club’s prestige on the Grand Slam circuit. ‘It’s a competitive world and you do need to be thinking in a competitive way,’ Smith says. ‘This is a long-term vision.’

If the project goes ahead, the first qualifying rounds will be played on the new courts in 2028, and the stadium will open by 2030. But it’s a big ‘if’.

Another, trickier problem may yet sabotage the proposals – the covenant that was imposed by Merton Council in 1993 when the club bought the land. At the time, Tony Colman, the Labour leader of the council, was emphatic that ‘respecting the wishes of local people’ the council was ‘resolute that the land will be retained as open space. All England has bought the land knowing this is our policy and is aware that we would not allow development of the site,’ he said.

John Currie, the then-chairman of the AELTC issued a statement of agreement: ‘We completely understand and support everyone’s determination to keep the land open and we have purchased the land on that basis.’

‘This covenant is held by Merton Council as trustees for the public,’ says Christopher Coombe, a lawyer and local resident. ‘Merton made the promise to residents in 1993. If you hold something in trust you have to have regard for what are your beneficiaries’ interests, and the beneficiaries of this obligation are the local residents and local residents’ associations. Which means they need to talk to us. At the moment there has been no conversation about this whatsoever.’

Coombe says the Residents’ Association has consulted with a top QC. ‘He said that making the site available for leisure, recreation and open space means recreation by the public. It does not mean watching professional tennis players play tennis. He has advised us that putting a socking great 28m-high stadium, with service roads, is blatantly in breach of the covenants.’

Simpson says that when he raised the question of the covenant with the AELTC last summer, ‘They effectively dismissed the whole issue, and at the second meeting they refused point blank to discuss it at all.’

In March, the chairman of The Wimbledon Society wrote to Ian Hewitt, the chairman of the All England Club, on behalf of all the residents’ groups, informing him that leading counsel had confirmed their view that the planned development would be in breach of the covenant. ‘All we got back,’ Iain Simpson says, ‘was an acknowledgement of the letter.’

Tim Henman, pictured here during the semi-finals of Wimbledon in 2001, argues that: ‘The potential development will upgrade the facilities in so many ways'
Tim Henman, pictured here during the semi-finals of Wimbledon in 2001, argues that: ‘The potential development will upgrade the facilities in so many ways' Credit: Getty Images

When I suggested to Justin Smith that an 8,000-seat stadium clearly contravened the covenant’s injunction ‘not to build’ on the land, he replied, ‘It’s not for us to make those judgments; that’s really something for Merton to decide.’

Paul Kohler is a Lib Dem councillor in Merton. In the local elections in May, the Lib Dems campaigned against the AELTC proposals, gaining 12 seats on the Labour-held council.

‘The AELTC bought the land in 1993 for a very low price because they couldn’t build on it, subject to that covenant,’ Kohler says. ‘From a legal perspective they’ve never bought the right to build on the land, and they’re now trying to do just that. Our stance is that the council is a public authority holding the benefit of the covenant in trust for the community. And if the council doesn’t enforce the covenant we will go to court to enforce it.’

In February, the Lib Dem group tabled a motion for the council to enforce the covenant. ‘It was as simple as that,’ Kohler says. ‘But the Labour administration watered that down to say they would respect the covenant. Our suspicion is that a deal has already been done. We’ve been told by council officers there’s been no deal. But we’re also told that minutes aren’t taken when the administration meets bodies outside the council.’

The Telegraph attempted to contact the Labour leader of Merton Council, Ross Garrod, but he did not respond to telephone calls or emails, nor did the council’s communications department.

‘We love having tennis here. We want it to grow, but we don’t think this is the way forward,’ Kohler tells me.

‘We want a compromise. The idea of bringing the qualifying rounds home to Wimbledon is a great idea, and the Friends of Wimbledon Park have come forward with a plan for that. The problem is the All England Club will not even talk to the community.’

But there is one further twist. All local authorities are mandated by the Government to have a Local Plan that outlines planning policies, and identifies sites for development. Merton’s was published last year; it includes a commitment to ‘support the continued upgrade and improvement of all the AELTC’s facilities to maintain its global position as the premier Grand Slam’.

Dismayed residents’ groups have lodged objections and a decision is expected later this year. According to Coombe, it might be referred to the Greater London Authority, and the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. ‘It could go on for a very long time,’ he says. ‘You could say it’s more than five sets with a tie breaker.’

Gesturing to the view outside her window, Thelma Ruby considers the future. ‘I’m an old lady. It’s true, I’m not going to see it finished. I’m going to see a building site, instead of this.

‘A lady came here from the All England Club to try and calm me down,’ she says with a laugh. ‘I said, why do you need it, for heaven’s sake? It’s just about the money.’

She mentions the words ‘spiritually happy’. I had turned off my recorder, so ask her to repeat what she had said. She paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts, then spoke as if to a crowded theatre.

‘As you can see from this fantastic view, looking out at it every day, at every time of the year, it keeps me spiritually happy. It really gives me the motivation to keep on enjoying my life.’     

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