Parks for sale: news from Wimbledon and maybe a park near you!

CPRE London monitors threats to all kinds of parks and green spaces in London and we support local residents to fight to save green spaces. This has been a busy year, and a particularly busy month for the high profile Save Wimbledon Park campaign, more of which below.

• This year we launched new guidance for people facing a green space threats in their neighbourhood.
• We are also always on the end of the phone to discuss the details of a case and provide advice on strategy: this year we’ve helped more than 50 local groups.
• We often put people in touch with experts on planning or legal issues, for example.
• We provide opportunities for people to chat to other groups facing similar threats so they can learn from one another and feel supported.
• And we run the GoParksLondon project alongside the London Friends of Green Spaces Network network, which aims to support and grown the park friends group movement in London, so that as many parks as possible have ‘friends’, which helps ensure they do not come under threat in the first place.

Our new threats report – coming in January 2026!

Roughly every two years, produce a report on threats to Green Spaces in London which helps raise the profile of the issue, show why threats to our green spaces are continuing, and allows us to recommend solutions. You can read our last report Green Defenders from March 2024. But we are now busy working on our new report to be launched in January 2026. We are so happy that we have been able to work with residents and local groups to save a number of green spaces. But we have lost a number too and we continue to work with many groups around London. We could not do it without them or you, our supporters!

• Sign up for London’s Green Spaces Under Threat: report launch (our upcoming report on threats to parks and green spaces in London) Thursday 22 January 12:30 to 2pm – online and free to attend.

Save Wimbledon Park: one step back, two steps forward…   

Some of you may have read that the All England Lawn Tennis Club’s cynical attempt to change the law to allow the public trust over the park to be removed, was rejected emphatically by the House of Lords late on November 3rd. Lord Gus O’Donnell, a director of the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) was forced to drop his proposed amendment 250 to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill after receiving strong criticism from peers of all political parties. Read more.

In a more positive turn of events, there has been litigation success for Save Wimbledon Park, with their Planning Challenge going to the Court Of Appeal. Save Wimbledon Park has been granted permission to take its judicial review case to the Court of Appeal. The Appeal Court has decided that the High Court’s decision in July 2025 to uphold the GLA’s decision to grant the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) planning permission requires legal scrutiny.

Parks for Sale

Following the Lords attack on park protections, there is increasing concern among local groups about two big issues putting our public green spaces under threat.

• One issue is the increasing number and scale of largescale commercial events in parks. These often take over parks for months during at the best time of year weather-wise, cause other problems and costs related to street cleaning, and policing for example, and often have an appalling impact on the fabric of the park, creating huge mud patches and damaging trees and other foliage.
• The other issue is that the recent legal judgement relating to Whitewebbs Park has exposed a loophole in legal protections for parks. Astonishingly, councils – which are meant to be the custodians of parks on behalf of the public – can in fact sell them without any restrictions.

We at CPRE London think both of these are a huge concern and we will be working with other key organisations to consider what needs to be done to ensure our public parks are properly protected into the future. Watch this space.