Campaigners voicing fears about ‘years of misery’ they face if Wimbledon tennis expansion goes ahead

By Harrison Galliven, Local Democracy Reporter

Residents living close to the site of the proposed multi-million pounds expansion of Wimbledon’s famous All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) onto the neighbouring golf course have voiced their alarm and horror at what could lie in store for them.

For many of them, the mantra of “We’re not anti-tennis” is a common theme but the Save Wimbledon Park (SWP) campaign have major concerns about the months of disruption they face if it all goes ahead.

SWP have a multi-faceted argument against the plans to build an 8,000 seater stadium across Church Road, which take in concerns about the environment, access and the decision to build on metropolitan open land, despite both Merton council and AELTC’s prior agreement that they wouldn’t do that.

However, there is another less technical but nonetheless impactful issue that binds them in their opposition.

The disruption caused by what AELTC predicts as at least eight years of building works and associated traffic always comes up as an issue, given the immense size of what they have planned for the area.

Along with building an 8,000-seat show court, 38 grass courts and 10 maintenance hubs on the site, the plans include a new public park spanning 9.4 hectares. The extra courts would allow AELTC to move the qualifying competition for the championships in Roehampton to the expanded site.

It would also host a new 14-and-under tournament and double the size of the wheelchair tennis tournament. AELTC has argued the scheme would make sure Wimbledon “remains as the pre-eminent tennis tournament in the world and one of the most recognisable global sporting events”.

Wimbledon resident Susan Cusack has helped lead SWP in their opposition to the plans and says the sheer scale of such a project would make local people suffer for perhaps the next decade.

She said said: “The lorries will be required to remove every single inch of soil from the 73-acre site. We’re talking an enormous amount of disruption there. Think about how many lorries are going to be needed to manage that.”

The SWP estimates that 44,400 more lorries would be needed to complete such a task. This would amount to up to 54 vehicles per day and one every 10 minutes from 8am to 5pm.

AELTC and the local authorities have already assigned a designated route that these lorries would take. However, SWP believes this route passes too close to areas of high concentration, and more often than not is along old and narrow roads.

“Around the village end of Church Road, where there is a row of listed little cottages that are really, really old and they literally shake when all these big lorries come past,” Ms Cusack said.

Southfields father of one Alistair Grant said: “If you look at the route they have chosen, it goes past the corner of my son’s school, St Michael’s School. Parents are up in arms about that.”

Fellow resident Ruth Crabb fears the lorries when only narrow pavements are available. She said: “Even years ago when my girls were small, pushing them to school along the pavements in the buggy was hard work because of all the traffic.”

Along with the physical threat that the lorries would bring, SWP has also stressed the pollution that would occur as a by-product of this hike in lorry traffic. Many Merton residents have also questioned their council’s support for the plans, when the same council declared a climate emergency back in 2019.

Ms Cusack said: “The roads will eventually break down because the weight of the cars and lorries are so heavy. The tarmac cannot take the weight over eight to ten years. From a pollution perspective, you have all the fine inhalable particles going into the air that are coming from the lorries’ tyres wearing down.”

Southfields resident Margaret Newman also warned that the influx of extra punters coming through for the extended three-week championships could also push the district line station at Southfields to the limit. She said: “Southfields is a very small station, it’s on a crossroads and they don’t have any capacity to expand.

“If you’re already having 10,000 people come through a day, a further 10,000 will be an absolute nightmare for the area.”

The views of SWP have been championed by several local politicians, especially those in the Labour-run Wandsworth council who voted to reject AELTC’s plans at a meeting in November last year.

During that meeting, Conservative councillor Daniel Ghossain described the scale of the proposed development as “disproportionate and insensitive to the needs of residents and the environment”.

Meanwhile, neighbouring Merton council (also Labour-run) has been one of the great backers of AELTC’s project, having chosen to approve plans at their meeting in October 2023.

Local MPs have been clear in their opposition to the plans, though – Putney’s Labour MP Fleur Anderson and Wimbledon’s former Tory MP Stephen Hammond among them. During the recent general election, all of Wimbledon’s prospective candidates, from Paul Kohler of the Lib Dems to the Independent Amy Lynch, stood in objection to the plans.

The decision on whether the plans will go ahead now sits with Jules Pipe, deputy mayor for planning at the Mayor of London’s office. A decision is expected to be made later this year.

In the meantime, SWP members can still be seen campaigning around Wimbledon and Southfields in their distinctive green t-shirts. They are also encouraging people to sign their online petition, which currently has over 20,000 signatures.

A spokesman from AELTC said: “Our proposals will deliver one of the greatest sporting transformations in London since the 2012 Olympics.

“The proposals have been meticulously planned to minimise disruption to residents. Even on the busiest days of construction, the number of lorries accessing our site will be less than half the number of 493 buses travelling on Church Road on a daily basis.

“We know that residents are excited at the prospect of 27 acres of newly accessible parkland that forms a core part of the transformation of the former golf course and we look forward to the GLA’s public hearing on the plans in due course.”

Merton council said: “The Greater London Authority is currently considering the planning application submitted to us and to the London Borough of Wandsworth by the All England Lawn Tennis Club to expand and we await the outcome of their decision.”

Pictured top: Save Wimbledon Park campaigners at a recent protest against the expansion (Picture: Harrison Galliven)