plans to build 38 new grass tennis courts on the golf course, some of them directly below her window. To the right of her view is where the club wants to erect its Parkland Show Court, a 28m-tall, 8,000-seat stadium.The AELTC says the ambitious new development is necessary to maintain its position at the pinnacle of the Grand Slam circuit.
But the plans have provoked a fierce battle between the club and an array of opponents, including local residents’ groups, The Capability Brown Society, CPRE (formerly the Campaign to Protect Rural England), and Thelma Ruby, who has launched her own petition against the proposals.The landscape in question covers 73 acres, part of a Grade II* Registered Park and Garden, designed by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown for the first Earl Spencer in 1768.
It is designated as Metropolitan Open Land, a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation, designated Open Space and within a Conservation Area.In 1993, the AELTC paid £5.2 million to buy the land from Merton Council.
But the sale, which met with fierce opposition from locals, came with a restrictive covenant ‘not to use it except for leisure or recreational purposes or as an open space and not to build on it’.
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