AELTC Planning Application: a Short History:
This article was published by the Wimbledon Society:
In July 2021 the AELTC submitted a planning application proposing to expand its operations onto the golf course lands, with a new 8000 seater and 28m high stadium, 38 open courts, and a number of maintenance depots, player facilities and other structures. Over the following years three further tranches of documents were filed bringing the total to over 200 as they attempted to comply with the requirements of the planning authorities and their environmental consultants. None of this delay was caused by objectors: their modified plans failed to respond to critical objections.
This application generated a huge public outcry from more than 21,000 people who signed the Save Wimbledon Park (SWP) petition, and many thousands of specific planning objections. The Wimbledon Society submitted 12 letters of objection to Merton and Wandsworth Councils on various aspects of the application, and it has been working closely with the Save Wimbledon Park campaign (SWP). Seven public meetings, each attended by hundreds of local people, have been held. MPs from both constituencies , GLA members and Ward councillors in both Boroughs have spoken against the AELTC project.
In 2023, Merton Council approved the application whilst Wandsworth unanimously rejected the application. The application then moved to the GLA, where the Society endorsed a further 5 detailed objection documents from SWP. The GLA’s own planning officers stated that this was one of the most complex, policy-heavy and policy-defying applications they had ever had to deal with.
An important block on development, of which the AELTC have been aware since early 2023, is the Supreme Court’s unanimous judgment about public recreation trust land, which is the status of the whole of the Park, Lake and former golf course. The GLA sought a legal opinion from an eminent barrister on the point. Just ten days before the hearing, the GLA published the legal opinion which confirmed the presence of the public recreation trust as a major stumbling block to the development and said it should be resolved by the Courts. Notwithstanding this advice the Deputy Mayor chose to proceed and granted permission, subject to the completion of a S106 planning agreement. That Agreement was completed, and the permission issued, on [18th] November 2024.
The public recreation trust status is fundamental to all publicly owned land and open space used for public parks and recreation areas, including pay and play tennis courts, bowling greens and golf courses such as those on the Wimbledon Park Estate. On the grant of the golf course lease to the Wimbledon Park Golf Club in 1986 and again on the sale of the freehold to the AELTC in 1993, Merton failed to take the necessary public advertisement and consultation steps required by statute to cancel the trust. According to the Supreme Court, that is a major problem: the failure means the trust continues in the hands of the lessee and new owner. The effect of the public recreation trust is that it requires the whole area to be available for public access, but it doesn’t stand in the way of part being used for the sort of pay and play facilities described above.
As it stands, the AELTC’s proposed development which has been likened to an”industrial tennis complex” is incompatible with the public recreation trust. However, the Judicial Review process is the only means by which a planning authority’s decisions to grant permission can be independently scrutinised. If the Review is successful, the planning decision is set aside and the applicant and planning authority have to think again. The Courts have now confirmed that SWP may proceed with a Judicial Review of the GLA’s decision.
In SWP’s case a key legal ground for the Review seeks to point up the major stumbling block of the public recreation trust identified by the GLA’s own advice. In fact, just as the Review was begun, the AELTC accepted that they need to resolve the public recreation trust issue by taking their own separate legal action before they can proceed. However that legal action has yet to be launched.
In the meantime, there still remain the covenants in which the AELTC publicly promised on their purchase in 1993 not to develop the land, to preserve its openness and to provide a walkway around the lake. These were pointed out to the AELTC by SWP in July 2021: they appeared to be unaware of them. The development is incompatible with these covenants, as Merton have already reminded them, saying that they expect the covenants to be “respected”. Thus far the AELTC have not addressed this issue in any public statement.
Both the Wimbledon Society and SWP feel sure that the AELTC could and should think again. They have been asked on several occasions to meet and discuss [their] options and ideas, but our offers have been refused or ignored. We remain open to discussions to resolve this litigation and all of this uncertainty.
