Chock-a-block Wimbledon hopes expansion plan gets green light

Times

a day ago

The Queue at Wimbledon is rightfully capitalised. Hundreds camp overnight and hordes more arrive in the early hours for on-the-day tickets. More than 10,000 people arrived as early as 6.30am on Friday.
Once inside the gates, there are several more queues, snaking around the grounds and getting entangled — for the toilets, the water fountains, the bars, the food stands, the photo opportunities and, most significantly, for the tennis courts.
The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) has sought planning permission to treble the size of the 42-acre site to keep pace with the three other grand slams: the Australian Open, the French Open and the US Open.
The club has proposed its Wimbledon Park Project that includes a new 8,000-seat stadium and 38 new grass courts on 73 acres of the former golf course over the road, which it has already purchased.
A residents' campaign group, however, has objected, lodging a judicial review challenge to the decision by the Greater London Authority (GLA) to approve the planning application.
On Tuesday, one of the quarter-finals days, the Save Wimbledon Park group will take its banners to protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice, arguing that the plans will be detrimental to the area's environment and infrastructure.
When asked about the project's progress on Monday, Sally Bolton, chief executive of the AELTC, said: 'We remain confident.'
She reasserted that the judicial review was of the GLA's decision, rather than the club's, which she described as a 'very interested party'.
'It seems like it's grown a lot,' said Lauren Homer, 34, who works in fashion, as she was queuing for Court 18. 'We queued six and a half hours [to get in], then we're going to queue for maybe another hour today.'
The grounds' official capacity is listed as 42,000, from which point the club operates a one-in-one-out system, which means daily attendance often exceeds this figure.
There are significantly fewer seats than this — about 38,000 — but spectators often move between sets or matches, allowing others queuing outside to replace them. Big screens around the venue, including on Henman Hill, are surrounded by large open places to sit down and watch tennis.
The AELTC said it needed a minimum of 18 match courts to run the championships, which is the exact number they have, and at least three matches are usually scheduled on each.
Ground passes allow spectators to view matches on the majority of the courts from 11am. The three main show courts are ticketed and start play after lunch.
Those with tickets for the big matches, however, often enter the grounds in the morning, joining the crowds on the outside courts for a few hours.
Callum Farmer, 23, an IT worker originally from New Zealand who now lives in London, left the Court 12 queue to go to a bar that had a slightly less 'massive' queue.
'I've been to the Aussie Open and Roland Garros and by far Wimbledon has the smallest grounds and least activities,' Farmer said. 'It's probably at max, you would not want any more, even now they could do with a few less people.'
The proposed 8,000-seat stadium will bring the club's maximum capacity to 50,000 and there is no plan to sell additional ground passes.
The extra space across the road is intended to spread out spectators, although the club intends to keep all of the championship matches on the original site if possible.
All week, spectators have been queuing to watch the biggest names warming up on the practice courts before they step on to the show courts.
Debbie Ryder, who has been to Wimbledon several times, said it had felt increasingly busy over the years. 'When the rain stopped and the covers came off, Alcaraz was practising and we couldn't move,' she said. 'It was just absolutely hell. Everybody was holding up their phones, it was ten deep. I've never seen it like that before for somebody on the practice courts.'
The AELTC hopes more practice areas will spread out the crowd who want a chance to see star players up close.
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As well as the fans, the extra courts will allow more breathing space for players to warm up, rather than sharing the 22 Aorangi Park courts, tucked at one end of the grounds.
Jamie Baker, the Wimbledon tournament director and former British No 2, said the practice courts are overused from the weekend before the main draw takes place until the pool of players starts to shrink at the end of the first week. 'During that period, players, they're a bit edgy,' he said, adding that the space was 'not optimal'.
'They can't really get quite enough court time that they want. It's very busy. Sometimes singles players are sharing with two other players on the court,' he said.
Perhaps the biggest difference will be felt the week before the championships during the qualifying competition, which takes place at Roehampton.
With the expansion, the AELTC plans for the qualifiers to take place on site, like at all three other grand slams, and that will bring in an expected 8,000 to 10,000 visitors a day, with 1,000 free tickets for schools.
Residents have said the plans are excessive and risk turning a valued piece of land into an 'industrial tennis complex'.
The golf course is considered Metropolitan Open Land and has the same protected status as green belt, although it is not open to the public.
The AELTC plans to open 27 acres of the new site as parkland, clean the lake, plant 1,500 trees and protect existing habitats.
Yet residents argue that the construction process, which will be spread over eight years to mitigate the environmental impact, will produce more pollution and bring even more pressure to the area's infrastructure once complete.
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At least 14,000 people a day get the District Line to Southfields and thousands more use Wimbledon station to attend the tournament.
On Thursday, thousands of spectators struggled to reach the club because part of the District Line, which serves both stations, was closed all day, and the remainder suffered severe delays.
Save Wimbledon Park posted on X: 'We love the tennis — we do but there is a real cost to being taken over, even for just two weeks a year. Streets are closed, bus routes diverted, parking a nightmare, tube travel ridiculous and traffic at gridlock.'
Hattie Park, sustainability manager at the AELTC, was asked how the club would mitigate the impact of more visitors to the local area.
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'I think what we hope is that public transport works,' she said. 'There'll be a lot of access for bicycles. We're working with Merton and Wandsworth in terms of how we can actually promote active travel.
'There won't be cars parked once that site is up and running, on the golf course any more, so we'll really revert back to that lovely natural site.'