Wimbledon expansion planning permission cleared by UK court after challenge

Audio By Carbonatix

Enlarge

LONDON (Reuters) -Wimbledon’s plans to expand the grounds for the world’s oldest and most prestigious Grand Slam tennis tournament overcame its first legal hurdle on Monday, as London’s High Court rejected a challenge to the project by campaigners.

Campaign group Save Wimbledon Park took legal action over planning permission granted to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC), which wants to treble the size of its main site in a 200 million-pound ($269.6-million) project.

The expansion would feature 39 new courts, including an 8,000-seat show court, could increase daily capacity from 42,000 to 50,000 people, and allow qualifying rounds to be held on site, which has been home to the Championships since 1877.

The AELTC’s plans to redevelop a former golf course which it owns are supported by several leading players, including Novak Djokovic, and some local residents.

Planning permission was approved by the Greater London Authority last year, but Save Wimbledon Park argued at a hearing this month that the GLA failed to properly take account of restrictions on redeveloping the land, agreed when the AELTC’s parent company bought the golf course freehold in 1993.

Judge Pushpinder Saini rejected Save Wimbledon Park’s challenge to the lawfulness of planning permission, but Wimbledon’s plans still face another legal hurdle about the status of the land, which will be heard early next year.

AELTC chair Debbie Jevans said she was delighted with the ruling, adding that the club will “now turn our attention to separate legal proceedings” about the former golf course land.

Save Wimbledon Park director Christopher Coombe said the group will seek to appeal Monday’s decision, which he said would set “a worrying precedent for the unwanted development of protected green belt and public open spaces”.

(Reporting by Sam Tobin; Editing by Kate Holton, Sarah Young and Ed Osmond)