We are thrilled with the success of our public CrowdJustice campaign so far, and we are truly grateful to our very many supporters and donors for their generosity in backing our claim for Judicial Review of the Deputy Mayor's decision to grant planning permission, due in court in early July.

When we launched this public CrowdJustice campaign 4 weeks ago, we considered that £120,000 was a reasonable goal for this part of our fundraising efforts, while at the same time we were exploring other possible sources of funding direct to SWP.

Now that the trial of Judicial Review is closer and now that, with such generous help from our public supporters, we are fast closing in on that goal, we have conducted a careful review of the expected legal expense of fighting this action. As a result, we consider it prudent to increase our public campaign goal to £160,000 in order to fully engage our legal team and ensure we can conduct the litigation to the highest standards.

We remain very hopeful that our supporters will continue to generously back our campaign and help us to reach this goal.

On Saturday 5 April the total raised by our Crowd Justice campaign passed the £100,000-mark, a truly magnificent (and quite humbling) achievement, after just 20 days and this was from 685 donors.  The total continues to climb.  We are so grateful to our supporters and donors for your generosity and public-spiritedness in backing our claim for Judicial Review of the Deputy Mayor’s decision to grant planning permission.

We held two very successful fund-raising meetings towards the end of March, at the Parish Hall, Edge Hill and St Barnabas Church, Southfields respectively.  Over 200 people attended each event.  We are very grateful to local resident (and TV personality) Andy Hamilton for compering both events.  Star guests at both were actress Thelma Ruby, celebrating her centenary, and Gabriel a local schoolboy who had organised a petition among his classmates, opposing this development. (photo above)

Our campaign has evidently attracted the attention of the BBC.  They ran a piece on the local evening news ahead of our St Barnabas meeting.  Last Sunday the Politics London show broadcast quite a lengthy segment in which our MP Paul Kohler challenged the AELTC Chair Debbie Jevans to meet with SWP to discuss the scheme, and to consider the possibility of a compromise.  Ms Jevans agreed to a meeting but was non-committal about her willingness to compromise.  We will keep our supporters updated on this front.

Meanwhile, both court cases progress.  As mentioned before, the trial of the Judicial Review proceedings has been fixed for 8 & 9 July 2025, bang in the middle of the Championships.  The entirely separate proceedings, relating to the statutory public recreation trust, are expected to reach trial towards the end of this year, or early next year.  We will keep our supporters briefed on this as matters develop.

In the meantime, the AELTC’s latest Community Newsletter suggests that the local community is champing at the bit to realise the “many community benefits” offered by their development.  There is no acknowledgement of the major legal hurdles which they have to surmount in order to be able to proceed with their development.  The AELTC appear unwilling to acknowledge or respond to the massive local opposition to their scheme.  Still no mention of the restrictive covenants, which would totally prevent this development, if enforced by London Borough of Merton.

Please continue to tell your friends and family about our campaign. Thank you again for your support.

In under two weeks of crowd funding we have raised £75,000. Thank you for helping us towards our target of £120,000! We are so heartened at the strong response with recent donations from £5 to £5000+. Absolutely every pound counts. 

Many donors have written comments with their donations. Thank you for these personal reflections highlighting your depth of feeling for protected green spaces, concern about the environmental devastation, lack of trust in the AELTC’s promises, and, frustration with the planning process.

On Wednesday 26 March we held a well attended public meeting in Wimbledon with special guests of local residents Andy Hamilton, Thelma Ruby (100) and schoolboy Gabriel (9). We are hosting another public meeting on Monday 31 March in Southfields. Details here. Please tell your friends and family about our campaign and events.

If you would like to get in touch with us directly, for general questions please email [email protected] and for fundraising related issues email [email protected]

Thank you again for your support. 

Thank you to our supporters who have helped us to raise £50,000 in just one week! 

There are now two court cases currently in progress concerning the AELTC’s proposed development on the former golf course land in Wimbledon park.

The first case is purely about planning. It is for this case that SWP is actively crowd-funding on this site.  SWP is challenging the legality of the Mayor of London’s decision to grant planning permission for the development.  This challenge is called Judicial Review and SWP is having to fund its considerable legal expense of fighting the case.   We have therefore updated our funding target to £150,000.

The second case is entirely separate and concerns the legal status of the land.  SWP say that the land is protected by a statutory trust, for public recreation, and that the proposed development is incompatible with public rights of access.  The AELTC disagree and have started court proceedings to decide the point.  

SWP has issued the following statement about this second case:

“To resolve the question of whether a statutory trust exists on the former Wimbledon Park Golf Club land, the All England Club currently considers that it is in the public and local community interest to put that question before the court for a decision.

Save Wimbledon Park Ltd has agreed to act as a representative defendant in this case, and accordingly, the All England Club has agreed to cover Save Wimbledon Park's legal costs in order to ensure fair opportunity for both sides to put their case to the court.

Both parties agree that having this matter resolved is an important step in establishing the status of the land.”

Neither of these two court cases addresses the covenants which the AELTC entered into when it acquired the golf course land, preventing building on the land and restricting its use to leisure and recreation.  Both the AELTC and London Borough of Merton remain silent about whether the development can proceed with these covenants in force.

We hope to see you at one of our upcoming events on 26 and 31 March.  Click here for details.