I recently met with several of the local Resident’s Associations in Wimbledon to discuss their opposition to the development of Wimbledon Park by the All England Lawn Tennis Club. Please find below a information about their stances, which I support.
SAVE WIMBLEDON PARK
The AELTC’s Planning Application and their latest “Planning Update”
A call to action
The AELTC’s planning application still continues. Just last month the AELTC updated their application with 60 new documents. The AELTC describes the amendments as “minor”, and the core principles of the scheme are unchanged: there will still be an 8,000 seat stadium and 38 courts built on Capability Brown’s historical Metropolitan Open Land. The new park remains “permissive” rather than “public” and contains a 30,000sqft Central Maintenance Hub for all the new courts.
The AELTC continue to tell us of their extensive "consultations" with the community. But this consultation is not a two-way process. After 1300 objections it is disappointing that no alternatives or scaling back have been suggested
Numbers count!
Please make your views known. If you commented previously, please comment again, by email to both Merton and Wandsworth with the application number in the subject header of your email and adding your address to make it valid. The deadline for Merton is 13 August.
Please send your comments to both
Merton Council: email [email protected] Application no 21/P2900
Wandsworth Council: email [email protected] Application no 2021/3609
Fundamental concerns about the AELTC’s Wimbledon Park Project proposals:
- Unacceptable Environmental Impact. The former golf course will be excavated, infilled, and levelled to deliver the new tennis complex over 7 years, threatening protected priority habitats. Claims for biodiversity net gains have been challenged in expert analysis.
- 300 mature trees will be felled, others moved, and an estimated 500 younger trees will be uprooted in the excavations.
- This is a Grade II* Listed Heritage Site, precious open space, protected Green Belt. Once built upon, the protection will be lost, and it could become completely developed.
- At 28m high and 104m wide the Stadium will still dominate this protected open space, contrary to the 1993 covenant, and will stand empty for most of the year. The AELTC still won’t commit to full design and layout details.
- The new AELTC park will still belong to the AELTC, it still contains a 30,000sqft “central” maintenance hub, and public access to it and the walk around the lake is still only “permissive”: it may be withdrawn as their commercial priorities change. They admit that their Masterplan for the future of their estate is “an evolving vision”.
- With limited tournament use over just 3 weeks the density of courts and infrastructure across the site is excessive and disproportionate. Community access to play tennis will be negligible. Parking and the Queue will still be on public park land.
- The plans still assume Church Road will be closed during the Championships, even to pedestrians and cyclists.
The attached document has additional detail. The original and revised planning documents are on the Councils’ websites.