The fight over Wimbledon Park is moving to Merton Council.
Later this month a local resident will put the council on the spot again. Behind it is a question Merton has avoided answering for nearly five years. Will it enforce the legal covenants it put on the land when it sold it to the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) in 1993?
Those covenants stand in the way of the club’s plans for an 8,000-seat stadium, 38 new tennis courts and other buildings on the old golf course. AELTC has admitted in the High Court that its scheme would breach them, and the judge in that case said the covenants must be resolved before it can go ahead.
Save Wimbledon Park, the residents’ campaign against the expansion, wants Merton to “agree to enforce the covenants or explain how they intend to break the law”. The resident’s own question, as the campaign words it, asks the council to reconsider its refusal to discuss an alternative plan for the land.
Merton agrees the scheme would breach the covenants. It said so in 2024, adding that planning permission does not override them and that the council is free to decide whether to enforce them. What it has not said is whether it will.
Councillors had the chance to commit in February 2022. A motion asked the council to tell AELTC it would enforce the covenants. It was rewritten to say they “will need to be respected” instead, and Merton has stuck to that line ever since.
Putney.news asked Merton the same question about whether it would enforce its covenants yesterday. It has yet to respond.
Isn’t this one for the courts?
Not yet. The Court of Appeal is still to rule on the planning permission. The fight over whether the land is a public trust is due back in that court by July 2027. Neither will decide the covenants: the High Court judge in the trust case said they were not in issue before him.
That leaves it with Merton. The council sold the golf course but still owns Wimbledon Park next door. Its own 2023 report says that gives it the power to release the covenants if the club asks. Its 2024 statement says whether to enforce them is the council’s decision too.
We read Merton’s own report on the covenants and went back to what it promised in 1993.
Members can read how the club could get round Merton, and what Merton’s report says happens if it simply builds. They also see the answer the club gave Merton’s leader, and the 1993 promise from the council leader who later became Putney’s MP.
Already a member? Log in
What members get from this story
- The legal route that lets the club go round Merton
- What Merton’s own report says happens if the club just builds
- The 1993 promise, from a council leader who later became Putney’s MP
Already a member? Log in
The club is also getting more out of land it already has. It is rebuilding The Hill, or Henman Hill, the grass bank where fans watch matches on a big screen, to hold 20 per cent more people by the 2027 Championships. The Hill is on the club’s main site, not the old golf course.
So the next move is Merton’s, in writing. The council publishes public questions with its written answers before the meeting, and the resident can then put a follow-up in person. If it takes the question, its answer will be public before 18 November. The council’s rules explain who can ask and how, and its Democratic Services team, at democratic.services@merton.gov.uk, can help.
