{"id":664416,"date":"2026-06-29T14:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T14:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/664416\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T14:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T14:16:10","slug":"wimbledon-expansion-plans-draw-protests-at-start-of-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/664416\/","title":{"rendered":"Wimbledon expansion plans draw protests at start of tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"

The AELTC’s proposals were given planning permission in 2024<\/a> and would see the existing site nearly triple in size. <\/p>\n

The club said it only planned to build on private land it had previously purchased at the former Wimbledon Park golf course in south-west London.<\/p>\n

However, SWP believe the public Wimbledon Park is at threat.<\/p>\n

Speaking to BBC London, SWP member Susan Cusack said: “I think that what the All England Club want to do is just far too large.<\/p>\n

“Our concerns are digging up 73 acres of metropolitan open land, the ecological and environmental damage that will do, [and] the issue that it will have with all the locals for 10 years while they’re doing all that building work.”<\/p>\n

The AELTC wants to expand the site so it can host qualifying matches, in line with other Grand Slam tournaments.<\/p>\n

But Cusack said she did not believe such a large development was necessary for the Wimbledon Championships.<\/p>\n

“You start off with 128 people on day one. On day two, you have 64. <\/p>\n

“So, probably, you don’t quite need 38 courts, a stadium, a maintenance building …. and nine other buildings on metropolitan open land.<\/p>\n

“This is corporate greed and it’s corporate hoarding,” Cusack said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The AELTC’s proposals were given planning permission in 2024 and would see the existing site nearly triple in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-664416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}