It all started in 2025, when a shortage of toilets left people relieving themselves around the park, including in Horse Close Wood and Ashen Grove Wood. The community was angry, and the panel was set up to investigate and remedy the problems. It is chaired by Fleur Anderson, the MP for Putney, and this year was its first Championships.<\/p>\n
The club had put in a new sewer so that all 108 toilets could be connected to the mains<\/a>, its newsletter said. The panel\u2019s table<\/a>, which FOWP published on 3 October, counts 111 cubicles, three cabins of urinals and two accessible toilets, then delivers its verdict: \u201cNot enough for spectators in 1st week.\u201d <\/p>\n Toilets crop up a lot: six of the table\u2019s 19 rows mention them, or people relieving themselves outdoors. The table sets each request the panel made in September 2025 against what happened in 2026.<\/p>\n Fewer people used the woods and other land outside the queue as a toilet than in 2025, the panel\u2019s impression is, and the table lists the closing of Horse Close Wood, clearer signs, a big screen carrying behaviour messages and more stewards and security guards, although \u201csome issues still need resolving\u201d. Most of the cases came in the days before the Championships and in the first week, it says, when the crowd in the Great Field, where the queue is held, outgrew the number of WCs set aside for them.<\/p>\n The club provided 108 toilets \u201cdespite a 200-unit request\u201d, says a Wimbledon Society summary of the residents\u2019 report<\/a>, adding that facilities were \u201cseverely inadequate\u201d in the first week. The summary does not say who made the request.<\/p>\n A queue inside the Queue<\/p>\n Queueing is the whole point of the Wimbledon Queue. This year, the loos had a queue of their own. At 10am, some 50 people were lined up for the women\u2019s loo by the children\u2019s play area and some 15 for the men\u2019s, an unnamed observer wrote in FOWP\u2019s report to the panel. They were there, people told the observer, because the club\u2019s temporary toilets had a wait of about 45 minutes.<\/p>\n FOWP says Merton Council shut the playground toilets from 7am to 10am; the panel\u2019s table says they opened at 9.30am, not 7am. It also notes a disabled toilet \u201cremained locked throughout with no reason\u201d.<\/p>\n The queue was not due to open until 2pm on Sunday 28 June, FOWP says, but people were arriving the day before, and tents arrived on Saturday afternoon<\/a>. For those early birds, a Wimbledon Society summary of the residents\u2019 report records \u201czero preparation or crowd control\u201d before the club took over.<\/p>\n Where people camped before the club\u2019s licence kicked in still needs clarifying, the panel\u2019s table says. FOWP says those early arrivals would be Merton\u2019s job, as the park\u2019s owner, but because Wimbledon is the club\u2019s event it argues \u201ca joint approach is better\u201d. If camping is allowed, it adds, there is a duty of care to provide toilets. FOWP said in its 2025 report that it has no access to the commercial agreement between Merton and the club.<\/p>\n Next year, the panel\u2019s to-do list has six items. The first is managing campers and \u201canti-social behaviour\u201d before the club\u2019s licence begins; the others include more toilets in the first week, enforcing existing rules more effectively and a better way to complain to the club and Merton. An updated progress report is due in spring 2027.<\/p>\n What park users said<\/p>\n Of the 313 people who answered FOWP\u2019s survey of park users, half from SW18 postcodes, 62% said the queue and camping inconvenience them or they avoid the park. Separate questions found 58% said the club\u2019s changes had made things much better and 89% understood the need to close Horse Close Wood.<\/p>\n The survey questions need changing next year, FOWP\u2019s own notes say, so that people can tick more than one answer. It ran online from 12 to 20 July and was promoted through FOWP\u2019s channels and local groups.<\/p>\n The cars, and the golf course<\/p>\n FOWP\u2019s answer to the cars is to move them: there would be more room for guests, and a better atmosphere, if car parking were relocated, its report to the panel says. It suggests setting it up on the club\u2019s land, which Merton could also use for events and for visitors to the public park. That would let the Horse Close Wood car park go, FOWP says; its draft plan for the wood would also return the car park to woodland<\/a>. The report does not name the land.<\/p>\n On parking in the public park, the club said \u201cthe aim was to cease after 2026\u201d, FOWP\u2019s 2023 report records. The same report says the club had 30 hectares on which it could park cars and \u201cfailed to use the golf club car park\u201d. FOWP says it asked Merton and the club in 2022 to end parking in the public park and heard from neither.<\/p>\n The club also owns the former golf course next to the park, where it plans an 8,000-seat stadium and 38 new courts. The Wimbledon Society, which opposes the expansion, says the queue and spectator parking would still sit in the public park under the plans. The planning permission is due to be heard at the Court of Appeal<\/a> this Wednesday.<\/p>\n Who to contact<\/p>\n The All England Club\u2019s community team: community@aeltc.com. Championships enquiries: 020 8944 1066, option 3.<\/p>\n Merton Council, for general park matters: 020 8274 4901.<\/p>\n Wandsworth Council, for noise and parking in Wandsworth streets: 020 8871 6000.<\/p>\n FOWP plans to repeat its survey of park users next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Wimbledon Queue is a British institution. It is also lacking in decent facilities, according to a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-794066","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\/794066","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=794066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Graphic](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/toilets-crop-up-a-lot-579x1024.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Toilet](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/toilet-roll-request-729x1024.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Queue](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/queue-inside-the-queue-729x1024.png\")
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