Wimbledon’s tennis expansion explained: Why new ruling unlocks plans for 39 new courts

A version of this article was originally published in December 2024. It has been updated to reflect the announcement on March 19, 2026 that the central issue in Save Wimbledon Park’s legal challenge to Wimbledon’s plans is not admissible.

The largest obstacle to Wimbledon’s plans to triple the size of its grounds has been removed, after the UK’s High Court ruled against a campaign group’s central legal challenge against the granting of planning permission for 39 new grass tennis courts.

Save Wimbledon Park (SWP) had argued that the All England Club’s main site for the new courts, an old golf course, could not be used because of a statutory trust requiring its land to be used for public recreation.

March 19, Justice Nicholas Thompsell ruled that the land is not subject to a statutory trust, because it was in use as a private golf course and had never been laid out as public open space.

“The ruling represents a significant milestone for our plans which will, as well as delivering 27 acres of beautiful new public parkland on previously private land, allow us to maintain Wimbledon’s position as one of the world’s most successful sporting events,” All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) chair Deborah Jevans said.

This is the most significant development in a protracted legal dispute which dates back several years. SWP has said it will apply to the Court of Appeal for the chance to appeal the ruling.

In September 2024, the Greater London Authority (GLA) granted the AELTC permission to go ahead with expansion plans, which included an 8,000-seater show court, on the site of the golf course across the road from the famous ground.

SWP had launched a legal challenge to the plans in January 2025, but in a judicial review that July, Mr Justice Saini ruled that the GLA was lawful in granting planning permission.

But how did Wimbledon get here? What are the expansion plans? And could they still be stopped?

What does the Wimbledon expansion look like?

The AELTC plans for the old Wimbledon Park golf course includes an 8,000-seat show court, which would be Wimbledon’s third.

The plans are designed, the AELTC said, to keep the championship on equal footing with the other three Grand Slam tournaments: the Australian, French, and U.S. Opens.

When would this project be completed?

Following the granting of planning permission in September 2024, AELTC chief executive Sally Bolton and chair Debbie Jevans said that the courts would not be ready until the early 2030s.

How did we get to this point?

SWP believed that the planning permission contradicted a “statutory trust,” which required certain areas of land to be kept free for public recreation. The AELTC believed that this did not apply to the land in question. That is at the center of their two newest legal processes, both submitted last December.

The AELTC wanted to have its own plans rubberstamped by the UK court system. SWP wanted the AELTC to acknowledge the statutory trust, and was petitioning the GLA to quash its granting of planning permission on this basis.

The new High Court ruling means that will now not happen.

This dispute goes back to 1993, when the AELTC bought the Wimbledon Park golf course land from Merton council for £5.2million ($6.6million). At that time, the AELTC signed a covenant agreeing that it would not use the land “other than for leisure or recreational purposes or as an open space.” Residents’ groups, including the Wimbledon Society, believed the AELTC’s proposals violated that covenant.

The next major step came in 2018, when the AELTC purchased the Wimbledon Park golf club, whose lease was to expire in 2041, for £65million. This led to each member receiving £85,000. Since then, the AELTC has pushed hard to expand to bring Wimbledon in line with the other Grand Slams.

Merton Council approved the AELTC’s plans in October 2023, but they were rejected by Wandsworth Council (the club straddles both areas) a month later. The matter was then referred to the 25-member elected body, the General London Assembly, which in a 221-page report published in September 2024, found “no material considerations that are considered to justify the refusal of consent” and recommended that the deputy mayor Jules Pipe should grant planning permission for the scheme.

In granting the planning permission, Pipe said that the proposals would “facilitate very significant benefits, including those to public open space and recreation, community, cultural heritage, ecology, biodiversity, economic, employment and transport” and would “clearly outweigh the harm caused by the proposal and represent very special circumstances.”

Then, in a statement dated January 3, 2025, SWP confirmed that it would challenge the permission granted by the GLA at a public hearing on Friday, September 27. It named the AELTC as an interested party, along with Merton and Wandsworth Councils.

Now, the statutory trust is no longer an area of concern, but SWP believes that the land is still subject to other restrictive covenants about development.

Why is Wimbledon so keen to expand?

The AELTC is adamant that this expansion is the only way to keep up with the other three Grand Slams, all of whom host qualifying onsite.

Wimbledon, which has always been the pinnacle of tennis, is lagging in that respect. The AELTC wants fans through the gates in qualifying week, which is currently held at Roehampton, a few miles away.

Moving qualifying to the Wimbledon site would see up to 10,000 fans enter the grounds per day, compared to the 2,000 capacity at the Bank of England Club in Roehampton. The AELTC hopes that the new space would allow for average daily attendances of 50,000 during the Championships proper; 2024’s average daily attendance was 37,603.

Having more courts, for both practice and for matches, will also reduce wear and tear across the tournament. Wimbledon currently operates with the minimum number of match courts for a Grand Slam, while its third-biggest court (Court 2) is the smallest of the four majors.

AELTC chair Jevans said in a briefing with reporters last month that the need for the transformation had become “ever more apparent” as other Grand Slams staged “fully integrated three-week events by welcoming many more spectators and staging charity and community events during the qualifying week and, crucially, providing the players with a stage benefiting their sporting excellence.”

Why were campaigners against the Wimbledon plans?

Hundreds of campaigners gathered outside the court on Monday in a show of support for objections to a £200m expansion that they believed would damage the local area.

“This judgment would, if it stands, set a worrying precedent for the unwanted development of protected green belt and public open spaces around London and across the country,” Christopher Coombe, Director of SWP, said in a statement issued on Monday.

Going back to 1993, and the covenant that the AELTC would not use the land “other than for leisure or recreational purposes or as an open space,” there is a feeling that promises have been broken.

In 1993, the then-chairman of the AELTC, John Curry, said: “We completely understand and support everyone’s determination to keep the land open and we have purchased the land on that basis.”

Protesters also have ecological and social concerns, with net tree loss and major impacts on biodiversity cited among the damage that development would do. Experts in this field called to the planning hearing by the AELTC rejected this characterization, pointing to plans to plant five times as many trees as would be removed under the plans. The experts also said that the area would perform better ecologically thanks to projects like planting pockets of wet woodland.

A recurring theme from the objectors was a perceived lack of compromise, and a feeling that local residents had not been consulted, more so than complete dismissal of the idea of expansion.

“The AELTC will surely have noted the considerable public outrage about this development, most recently expressed outside the law courts, and we continue to hope that they could be persuaded to engage constructively with us, with a view to achieving a resolution of this four-year-old dispute,” Coombe added on Monday.

Protesters outside last September’s public hearing outlined some of their concerns when interviewed by The Athletic. Mary-Jane Jeanes, a member of environmental group Friends of the Earth and a former Liberal Democrat councillor in Merton, pointed to some of the ecological damage the expansion would do and the long period during which residents would be affected by the development. “There’s going to be up to 10 years’ disruption whilst this stuff is built,” she said.

Jeanes and other residents also reject the idea that Wimbledon has to improve to keep pace with the other slams. They argue that Wimbledon’s heritage and prestige mean it will always be a special, iconic event.

Was everyone who lives locally opposed to this?

No. During the public hearing, Shan Warnock-Smith KC, a local resident in support of the development, praised the AELTC for its “ample consultation” with the community.

David Mooney, London Wildlife Trust chief executive officer, spoke of the plans having “ecological enhancement” and said that “the golf club is ecologically pretty dead.” It was later pointed out that the Trust was relying on AELTC data that had not been independently corroborated.

Local resident and a lifetime member of the Wimbledon Society Thomas Moulton said that “significant benefits will be appreciated year-round and outweigh the negatives.” A 23-acre public park “will benefit future generations,” he said. There will also be a four-acre public park at the northern entrance to the site, adjacent to the entrance to the existing Wimbledon Park. This will be accessible year-round, outside of the qualifiers and the Championships.

This is one of the big counter-arguments against the objectors: the fact that ‘Save Wimbledon Park’ is a bit of a misnomer. The AELTC is planning to build on what has been a private golf club for 100 years, not public Wimbledon Park land. The new development will, of course, be off limits to the public for some of the year (and in some parts all of the year), but it is not replacing land that is currently public or has ever been in modern times.

“We are delighted that Mr Justice Saini has dismissed the challenge to the GLA’s decision to grant planning permission for our plans to transform the former Wimbledon Park golf course,” Jevans said in her statement.

“It is clear that we have a robust planning permission that enables us to create a permanent home for the Wimbledon qualifying competition as well as delivering 27 acres of beautiful new parkland for local people, providing public access to land that has been a private golf course for over 100 years.”

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, who recused himself from the process three years ago, having previously expressed support for the proposals, said on social media after the ruling: “This is welcome news that will cement Wimbledon’s reputation as the greatest tennis competition in the world and London as the sporting capital of the world.

“This scheme will bring a significant range of economic, social, cultural and environmental benefits to the local area, the wider capital and the UK economy, creating new jobs and green spaces.”

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