Wimbledon Park
- Client: All England Lawn Tennis Club
- Architect: Allies and Morrison
- Contacts: Jon Roshier, Oliver Coleman
- LPA: London Borough of Merton
Working with the AELTC, Rolfe Judd Planning has been leading a hybrid (outline and detailed) planning application to bring The Qualifying event to the former private golf course at Wimbledon Park, opposite the existing main site where The Championships are annually held. The proposal seeks to deliver 38 grass tennis courts and a new 8,000 seater third show court, to boost the prominence of the Qualifying Competition, enhance The Championships, and maintain Wimbledon as the most prestigious tournament of the tennis sporting calendar.
The proposals, which received approval from the London Deputy Mayor following a Stage lll Hearing, will relocate the Qualifying Competition to the former Wimbledon Park Golf Course, adjacent to the main grounds of the 156-year-old club. This will bring Wimbledon in line with the other Grand Slams which all have their qualifying and championship events on the same site. The proposals secure 38 grass courts and include an 8,000-seater third show court, aligning Wimbledon with the other grand slams. Seven maintenance buildings and a subterranean Central Grounds Maintenance Hub will also be delivered ensuring the site can be serviced and maintained.
The whole of Wimbledon Park is a Grade II* Registered Park and Garden (RPG), designed by Lancelot “Capability” Brown, one of England’s foremost masters of landscape architecture. The RPG is however on the ‘heritage at risk’ register and the proposals, whilst only on a part of the RPG, have secured substantial contributions and works across the RPG to help remove it from the register. This includes:
- Establishing a working/coordination group with the landowners within the RPG to development and improved strategy for the entire RPG,
- De-silting Wimbledon Park Lake for the first time since its formation in the 1760s, de-culverting two brooks and restoring its historic profile,
- Removing the golf course template from the landscape via reprofiling, tree removals and over 1,500 new trees along with thousands of whips,
- New tree planting within the public Wimbledon Park,
- New paths, equal access routes, boundary treatments, wayfinding signage and links between the landholdings in the RPG,
- Funding for the replacement of the boathouse,
- Funding for new children play facilities,
- Management and maintenance strategies for the remaining remanent of Ancient Woodland and Veteran Trees.
The proposals also secure 11.1ha of public parkland across the former private golf course site and the creation of a boardwalk around the perimeter of, and across, Wimbledon Park Lake. This secures public access to these spaces for the first time and will be one of London’s largest parks since the creation of the Queen Elizabeth II Olympic Park, delivered as part of London 2012. A sporting and recreational legacy is also targeted, with the leisure uses of the lake secured by the de-siling, new angling pontoons, community access for at least seven grass courts and tickets to the Qualifying Competition for local school children. Community and heritage learning spaces are also secured.
In addition to the RPG, the proposals had to consider the policy designations of the Wimbledon Park Conservation Area, remnants of Ancient Woodland, the site’s ecological value and its situation on Metropolitan Open Land (a similar designation to the Green Belt). The proposals are an example of a ‘Very Special Circumstances’ application, which Jules Pipe, the Deputy Mayor of London, determined the scheme had clearly met through the “significant” benefits of the scheme outweighing the harm.
The site straddles the borough boundaries of London Borough of Merton and London Borough of Wandsworth. An identical planning application was submitted to both London Boroughs for approval and required close and regular communications with both local authorities, along with the local community and the GLA. As a major sporting event, bodies such as TfL and the Metropolitan Police have also been engaged with.
The hearing was the result of a ‘Call In’ from the Mayor following the London Borough of Wandsworth’s planning committee rejecting the plans in 2023 a month after the London Borough of Merton voted to approve the development. Following the Deputy Mayor’s decision, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner also has the power to call in the application but has made clear that the application “should be determined at a local level”.
Rolfe Judd Planning has been engaged by the AELTC for over a decade, helping to deliver a masterplan for Wimbledon to guide its long-term future development and operational strategies whilst continuing to reflect its much-loved traditions and keeping to the club’s spirit of ‘Tennis in an English Garden’
