Wimbledon Tennis (AELTC – the All England Lawn Tennis, has submitted proposals to build an 8,000 seater stadium and 38 practice courts on the former golf club that was previously Wimbledon Park.

Fleur loves the tennis and was open minded about the proposal at the earliest stage. But having looked into the proposals, she opposes these AELTC plans. She has been campaigning alongside residents against them for several years during the consultation stages.

Fleur believes that our green spaces are important and must be saved. This is an inappropriate development in highly protected Metropolitan Open Land and a Grade II listed park. There is a creation of a small area of public park in the proposal but most of this will be closed in May and June every year for the Championships. There is no protection for this land in the future against further AELTC development.

The stadium could be built in the existing Wimbledon Tennis site with further welcome investment in the Roehampton site for the qualifying courts.

The AELTC plans are not compatible with the environmental will impact on biodiversity. There will be 9km of tarmac between the courts, many small buildings for maintenance and an industrial scale stadium. This will turn a residential area in Southfields into a building site for years with lorries damaging local roads. People have fought for generations to protect London’s precious green, public spaces and Fleur believes that the whole of Wimbledon Park should be placed into a public trust, to guarantee that the park will remain open to all of the public for generations to come.

Fleur has organised public meetings with the CEO of AELTC to hear residents views, organised walkabouts with residents to hear about the plans on the ground, appeared on national and local media speaking against the plans, met with Merton and Wandsworth Council leaders, written to the Wandsworth and Merton Planning Committees members several times, issued a joint statement against the proposals with Stephen Hammond and spoke at the recent packed public meeting in St Barnabas Church.

Fleur will continue to fight against these proposals alongside local residents, a large number of local Residents Groups, Londoners who value green spaces and the Campaign for the Protection For Rural England (CPRE).