A Lords amendment aimed at clearing the way for Wimbledon’s expansion has fallen, leaving the project exposed to renewed legal challenges — including further cases in 2026 — over public land, statutory trusts and historic community promises.
Following the loss of the first round of legal battles over the summer — and with further challenges looming, including an appeal and a separate trust-related case expected in 2026 — another twist marked the close of an already turbulent year for both supporters and opponents of the Wimbledon expansion.
Lords move to fast-track Wimbledon expansion
In October, a group of Lords brought forward an amendment (see page 101) that appears to be tailor-made for the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC), potentially clearing legal obstacles that could otherwise prevent development on the park under long-standing conditions.
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill sits at the heart of the government’s drive to “get Britain building” and stimulate economic growth. Ministers say the legislation will accelerate and simplify the delivery of new homes and major infrastructure, underpinning the government’s Plan for Change targets — including 1.5 million “safe and decent” homes in England and the fast-tracking of 150 planning decisions on nationally significant infrastructure projects by the end of this Parliament.
Amendment No. 250, tabled after Clause 108 by Lords Banner, Grabiner, O’Donnell and Pannick, proposes to overturn the effect of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Day v Shropshire. That ruling established that land held on public trust remained subject to that trust, even after being sold, unless certain procedures were followed.
As those procedures were not followed in 1993 when the freehold of Wimbledon Park was sold to the AELTC the land is still arguably subject to a public trust.
The amendment went further, aiming to backdate the legal position to 1980. In doing so, it would have captured all local authority land transactions over the past 45 years — including, crucially, the 1993 sale of the former golf course.
That sale was carried out without proper consultation of the local community, according to campaign group Save Wimbledon Park (SWP), which argues that Merton Council failed to extinguish the statutory trust created when the estate was acquired in 1965.
Why Day v Shropshire matters
Opponents of the Wimbledon expansion have relied on Day v Shropshire to argue that parts of Wimbledon Park remain subject to a statutory trust for public recreation, meaning the Tennis Club does not enjoy the full and unrestricted development rights it claims over the former golf course land. The ruling has also unsettled government and developers more broadly, prompting efforts by some in Parliament to legislatively “switch off” the effect of Day for Wimbledon and comparable schemes.
The Open Space Society said:
“The effect of the amendment by Lords Banner, Pannick, Grabiner, and O’Donnell is
to make it much easier for local authorities to sell open spaces to developers, ignoring and
negating any public rights there.”
The move proved particularly controversial after groups including SWP and Wimbledon MP Paul Kohler highlighted that Lord Gus O’Donnell — one of the amendment’s sponsors — sits on the board of the AELTC (as mentioned on his list of experience) . They also claim that the life peer is a former member of Wimbledon Park Golf Club, which occupied the heritage parkland the AELTC now plans to develop, and would therefore have been eligible for the £86,000 payout made to each member in 2018 when the club accepted an early termination of its lease following the AELTC’s buyout.
Paul Kohler MP said he had raised the issue with his Liberal Democrat colleagues in the House of Lords:
“We should be protecting the public’s right to public land rather than giving those rights away to private developers.
I am concerned by the support given to the amendment by Lord O’Donnell who is a member and on the board of AELTC. As the AELTC will directly benefit from the change to the law he is sponsoring there appears to be a clear conflict of interest. I am also doubtful as to whether Lord O’Donnell is abiding by his duty of selflessness and impartiality as required under the House of Lords code of conduct, though of course he would make no personal gain.”
The goal to derail all procedures preventing the expansion of the Wimbledon Tennis Club was not hidden, at least during the debate in parliament. In his address to the House of Lords, Lord O’Donnell said:
” The Day judgement has created significant delay and uncertainty to Wimbledon’s ability to transform the land that has, for more than a century been a private members golf club.”
However, concerns were echoed across party lines. Baroness Young of Old Scone, a Labour peer and former Environment Agency chief executive, warned that judicial review was not a realistic remedy for many communities.
” To say that a judicial review is the way forward frankly misrepresents the position of many local communities who are absolutely incapable of bringing a judicial review, either by degree of organisation or financially. So this is an important problem, but the amendment is the wrong answer, and I would support the Minister in having further discussions and not rushing to grab the nearest passing parliamentary draftsman, who can write a better amendment than the one that we have got.”
Liberal Democrat Baroness Pinnock also criticised the lack of consultation.
“You need to take people with you on these big issues. And that, as far as I can see, has been the utter failure of what is happening, particularly in the the Wimbledon Park issue. […] Make decisions of this enormity without proper, full consultation. Listening to voices, hearing what they have to say, responding to them and not just doing the steamroller job, which too many developments seem to want to do. So I’m in agreement with the noble Earl, Baroness Young of Old Scone and noble Baroness Ben and others. Suggesting as noble Lord has done, that people can go to judicial review: call me cynical, but lawyers love people going to judicial review because it helps helps their income line.”
On CJI, we previously highlighted the difficulties and cost to communities to challenged big corporation decisions.
While the government accepted that unresolved issues remained, it said they should be dealt with via separate, consultative legislation instead. Ministers accepted that the matter should not be rushed — particularly not through retrospective law-making — warning that such an approach risked undermining not only the Wimbledon case but also long-standing statutory protections for public open space.
Eventually, decision was made not to proceed with the amendment and it fell without moving at Report Stage.
What happens next in court, with right to appeal granted
Crucially, the decision leaves the legal challenge to the AELTC’s plans firmly on track.
In a case due to be heard in January, the High Court is set to determine whether the portion of Wimbledon Park acquired by the club from the council in 1993 was, at the time of sale, subject to a statutory trust. That view is held not only by SWP campaigners but also by the Greater London Authority’s own King’s Counsel, Timothy Morshead.
Addressing the GLA in September 2024, Morshead said that under 19th-century legislation the land remained legally held for public recreation. He argued that Merton Council should have publicly advertised its intention to lease the land both in 1981 and again in 1993, but appears not to have done so.
Taken at face value, that would mean the 1981 lease — and the council’s reversionary ownership once that lease expires — are both subject to a legal trust requiring the land to be preserved for public recreation. If upheld, that trust would bind whoever currently leases or owns the land, potentially rendering the proposed Wimbledon expansion incompatible with its statutory status — a point acknowledged by the AELTC itself.
Separately, the Court of Appeal has granted SWP permission to appeal against an earlier High Court ruling that rejected the community group’s legal challenge.
In July, Mr Justice Saini dismissed all of the campaigners’ arguments in a judgment that proved controversial. He ruled that it is not the role of a planning authority to refuse an application simply because there may be difficulties in implementing it — even where delivery appears, on the face of it, to be impossible. Rather, he said, the authority’s task is to assess whether a proposal is desirable and in the public interest, irrespective of potential obstacles to its execution.
However, in a court order dated 13 November, Lord Justice Holgate said the case warranted further scrutiny and granted permission for the decision to be reviewed by the Court of Appeal:
“The grounds of appeal are arguable with a real prospect of success. The case law on scheme benefits, deliverability, relevance, material considerations and irrationality merits review by the Court of Appeal.”
Jeremy Hudson, a director of SWP, said the case raised issues that went beyond Wimbledon Park itself:
“Above all, this is a public interest case. Planning is ultimately concerned with whether a development is in the public interest. The existence of rights of the public, imposed through the statutory trust and the restrictive covenants in the public interest, should plainly be very material to the planning decision. Unwanted development of public open spaces is proposed all over London: Wimbledon Park is just one example.”
And Paul Kohler, the Wimbledon MP, also pointed to what he described as a further, potentially decisive obstacle. Writing in the Wimbledon Guardian, he said:
“Even if the All England Club successfully surmounts both the first two hurdles, they still have to confront the biggest obstacle of them all – the legal promises they made in 1993 to never build on the land. According to the relevant case law, those undertakings, known as covenants, are pretty watertight, provided the party that’s owed the obligation, namely Merton Council, chooses to enforce them.”
The appeal hearing, expected to last two days, has yet to be scheduled. Save Wimbledon Park has meanwhile confirmed that it is preparing for its next court appearance concerning the Statutory Public Trust, due to begin in the week commencing 12 January 2026.
Separately, Paul Kohler MP has sought to reopen dialogue between the All England Lawn Tennis Club and Save Wimbledon Park campaigners in an effort to explore whether a compromise might still be possible. Two meetings have already been convened under his auspices. While no details have been disclosed about their substance or outcome, their occurrence marks the first resumption of direct engagement after months of stalemate — a period during which campaigners repeatedly said they were open to talks and had invited the AELTC to engage.
