All England Lawn Tennis Club Commences Consultation For Wimbledon Ground Expansion

All England Lawn Tennis Club Commences Consultation For Wimbledon Ground Expansion The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) has begun a public consultation process for its plans to expand the grounds of the Wimbledon grand slam tournament and this consultation is expected to conclude in June with a planning application to be submitted in July.

Planning approval it would allow work to begin on the project in 2022 with the various aspects of the plan being delivered in sequence.

Subject to the project proceeding successfully the AELTC said it would be able to stage the qualifying rounds of Wimbledon within the extended grounds by 2028.



Plans for this expansion have been in progress since agreeing a deal to acquire Wimbledon Park Golf Club in December 2018. Although the AELTC had already owned the lease on the golf club, control of it was not due to revert back to the body until 2041, however, the AELTC struck a deal worth £65m after WPGC members voted 82% in favour of the agreement.

The expansion to the tournament grounds would enable Wimbledon to keep pace with fellow grand slams - the Australian Open, French Open and US Open, all of which have undergone redevelopment projects in recent years.

The AELTC has also provided an update on plans for the 2021 Championships, which are due to run from June 28 to July 11.

Amid the ongoing uncertainty caused by COVID-19, the most likely outcome is for this year’s event to take place with a reduced number of spectators. The club stressed that it would take every step to remain “as flexible as possible” to ensure it reacts to changing circumstances when they may require an increase or decrease in fan attendance, therefore exact capacity plans will be made as late as possible to ensuring maximum fan attendance but no ‘public ballot’ will take place and there will not be the ‘famous queue’ or ‘ticket resale’ in operation for the 2021 tournament.

There is optimism among the elite sports that their finals can go ahead at full capacity and chairman of AELTC, Ian Hewitt is hopeful that tennis can ‘play an exciting role’ whilst also appreciating that these remain challenging and uncertain times yet they are committed to delivering on their aspiration of staging the best Championships possible.

Wimbledon was cancelled last year for the first time since World War Two after organisers conceded that the challenges presented by COVID-19 would be insurmountable!

All England Lawn Tennis Club Commences Consultation For Wimbledon Ground Expansion