LTA plans a major training centre in Roehampton: a new base for Britain’s tennis elite alongside Wimbledon qualifying
The Lawn Tennis Association is preparing an ambitious infrastructure step forward in Roehampton, in the south-western part of London, where the British National Tennis Centre is already located and where Wimbledon qualifying is traditionally played. According to documents reviewed by The Times, the LTA wants to buy neighbouring land owned by the Bank of England and develop a much larger national training centre there, conceived as a long-term base for the development of top players, coaches and specialist services. The plan is becoming public at a moment when the grass-court season has entered its most visible phase, because The Championships 2026, according to Wimbledon’s official calendar, are being held from 29 June to 12 July 2026.
According to the same report, the project is conceived as a kind of "St George’s Park of tennis", that is, a centralised national sports campus that would give British tennis a stronger infrastructure core. The plan mentions the construction of 36 outdoor tennis courts, 12 on each of the three main surfaces: hard, grass and clay. Roehampton would thereby become a complex capable of systematically preparing players for the different conditions of professional tennis, from grass-court Wimbledon to clay and hard courts at other major tournaments.
The LTA already operates the existing National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, which, according to the association’s official data, opened in 2007 and today has 20 tennis courts, three padel courts, accommodation capacity and a sports-science centre. The official LTA website states that services are provided there to British men’s, women’s and wheelchair tennis players at a high level, as well as coach-education programmes, competitions and junior and adult community programmes. The new plan therefore does not mean creating a base from scratch, but expanding an existing hub into a much larger national system.
What the new complex should bring
According to The Times report, the expanded centre should bring together sports-science support, medicine, recovery, data analytics and technology, as well as an academy for developing elite junior players. Such a model reflects a broader trend in professional sport, in which top-level results depend less and less only on the number of hours on court, and increasingly on the connection between the training process, injury prevention, biomechanics, strength and conditioning, psychological support and planning of the tournament calendar. In tennis, that challenge is especially pronounced because players change continents, surfaces, weather conditions and competitive rhythms throughout the year.
If the project is realised on the announced scale, Roehampton could gain a complex capable of everyday work with the best British players, but also of organising professional and junior tournaments on all surfaces. The Times states that the centre would also have an educational role for coaches, which is important because player development does not take place only through infrastructure, but also through the quality of specialist staff. In its official materials on the Player Pathway programme, the LTA emphasises that it wants to develop players from younger age groups to the level of world singles and doubles, and a stronger national base could make that path more coherent.
Especially important is the intention to connect under one roof different services that in modern tennis are often scattered among clubs, private teams, academies and tournaments. According to the official description of the LTA’s national academy, the programme for young players relies on a high-intensity everyday environment, coaches, sports science, medicine, personal development and player care. In that sense, the new Roehampton could provide the physical and organisational foundation for a system that already exists, but would gain wider capacities and a clearer central point.
Why the Bank of England land is crucial
The central part of the plan relates to the neighbouring complex that is formally connected with the Bank of England and is used as the Wimbledon Qualifying and Community Sports Centre Roehampton. On 29 June 2021, the Bank of England announced that it had agreed a 15-year lease of the sports centre and grounds in Roehampton with the All England Lawn Tennis Club. The Bank’s statement at the time said that the courts would continue to be used for Wimbledon qualifying, with the possibility that part of the outdoor areas would be available to the local community according to the AELTC’s booking rules.
According to the official website of the centre in Roehampton, the location was previously known as the Bank of England Sports Centre, and today it is operated by the All England Lawn Tennis Club. The website states that, in addition to Wimbledon qualifying, the complex is used for sports activities, training sessions and matches with local schools and communities from September to May. This means that any purchase and long-term development of the land would have to take into account not only elite tennis, but also the existing role of the space in the community and the obligations connected with Wimbledon qualifying.
The Times reported in January 2026 that the Bank of England was considering selling the freehold of the approximately 28-acre estate in Roehampton and had engaged Knight Frank to advise on a potential sale. According to that report, the AELTC lease remains an important part of the location’s status, because the club organises Wimbledon qualifying there. In the context of the LTA’s plan, it is precisely the availability of that land that is the key prerequisite for creating a campus that would be considerably larger than the current National Tennis Centre.
Wimbledon qualifying remains an important part of the puzzle
Roehampton is also known in world tennis as the place where players fight for the final spots in Wimbledon’s main draw. According to Wimbledon’s official website, the qualifying competition for The Championships 2026 was held from 22 to 25 June at the Community Sports Centre Roehampton. Players in qualifying must pass through three rounds in order to secure one of 16 places in the main draw of the men’s and women’s singles competitions, which gives that location special symbolic weight in the week before the main tournament.
According to The Times report, as part of the plan the LTA would commit to keeping Wimbledon qualifying in Roehampton until the All England Club completes its separate expansion project in Wimbledon Park. Wimbledon’s official website states that planning permission for the Wimbledon Park Project was issued at Greater London Authority level in November 2024, while a subsequent court proceeding against that decision ended with the rejection of the request to quash the permission. Still, the project remains part of a broader public and legal debate, so the question of when qualifying will move closer to Wimbledon’s main complex is not only a sporting issue, but also a spatial-planning issue.
For the LTA, this is a sensitive circumstance. On the one hand, expanding Roehampton could strengthen the British development system in the long term and create an independent tennis base with multiple surfaces. On the other hand, the location has an existing function in Wimbledon’s calendar, and the AELTC has a lease stemming from its agreement with the Bank of England. It can therefore be concluded from the available information that any change of ownership and future construction works would have to be aligned with the qualifying schedule, community obligations and the plans of the All England Club.
Growth in participation increases pressure on infrastructure
The LTA’s interest in a larger complex comes in a period in which the association is recording strong growth in tennis and padel. According to the LTA’s annual report and accompanying announcement for 2025, annual adult participation in tennis reached 5.8 million people in the summer of 2025, which the association describes as the highest recorded level. In the same document, the LTA states that more than four million children played tennis during the year, while monthly children’s participation rose 15 percent to 1.8 million, and weekly participation 26 percent to 0.8 million.
Such data helps explain why the issue of courts, covered capacity and high-quality training environments is again at the centre of sports policy. In the same announcement, the LTA stated that its 2025 financial results enabled additional investment in participation, performance and marketing, but also warned of challenges in 2026 and beyond, including rising costs of organising major events, inflationary risks and the need to continue investing in infrastructure, participation programmes and the player pathway. This suggests that the Roehampton project is not an isolated idea, but part of a broader need to modernise capacity.
An important element is also padel, whose growth additionally burdens sports complexes and stimulates demand for new courts. The LTA’s existing National Tennis Centre already has three padel courts, and The Times states that the expansion of that sport is one of the reasons why existing capacities are becoming too small for future operations. Although the planned complex is primarily presented through tennis and elite development, the wider infrastructure of racket sports in Britain is clearly becoming an increasingly important part of the association’s strategic planning.
Architectural dimension and global models
WOO architects has been engaged to prepare the vision, according to The Times report. On its official website, the firm cites experience in projects connected with major sporting events and facilities, including London 2012, Paris 2024 and work on Camp Nou in Barcelona. Such a reference shows that the LTA does not view Roehampton only as a set of courts, but as a complete campus in which functionality, athlete movement, the work of specialist services, accommodation, competition logistics and the relationship with the community will have to be planned together.
The comparison with St George’s Park, the football training campus in Burton upon Trent, emphasises the ambition to create a recognisable national centre, not merely an additional number of courts. The comparison with academy models such as Nadal’s academy in Mallorca points to the idea of connecting the everyday work of young players, education, medicine, conditioning and competition. Such models do not automatically guarantee the creation of future Grand Slam winners, but they can reduce the fragmentation of the system and make it possible for talents to enter a professional environment earlier.
The available information does not yet give a complete picture of the cost of the LTA project, construction timelines, the formal status of the land sale and purchase, or any requirements of the planning process. Nor has it been officially confirmed when the first works could begin if the plan moves from the vision phase into implementation. These are key questions because the complex is located in a sensitive area of south-west London, where sports projects regularly raise issues of traffic, public access, preservation of green spaces and the relationship of professional sport to local infrastructure.
Wider significance for British tennis
In recent years, British tennis has been trying simultaneously to broaden the participation base and maintain competitiveness at the professional level. In its strategic documents, the LTA emphasises the vision of "Tennis Opened Up", that is, opening tennis to a larger number of people, but elite development requires a different type of investment: specialised coaches, stable court conditions, sports-science laboratories, medical supervision, travel plans and high-quality international competition. According to the description of the project, Roehampton should respond precisely to that second part of the equation.
The official LTA Player Pathway covers players from the age of seven to eighteen and onward toward professional tennis, and its goal is to develop players capable of competing at the highest levels of singles and doubles. The National Academy programme, according to the LTA, is intended for selected players aged 13 to 18, with the possibility of earlier entry in exceptional circumstances, and is based on a daily high-intensity environment. Such a system requires quality facilities, but also stability that cannot always be achieved if the preparation of top juniors relies only on regional centres or private arrangements.
For London and international tennis, proximity to Wimbledon is also important. Roehampton is located in the same broader urban area as the All England Club, and the grass surface and the tradition of the qualifying tournament give it a special role in the sporting calendar. If the LTA succeeds in connecting the existing National Tennis Centre with the neighbouring land, the complex could become a rare place in Europe that offers, in one base, a large number of courts on the three main surfaces, along with medical, scientific and educational infrastructure.
For now, the plan is most important as a signal of direction: the LTA wants a long-term base that will respond to growth in participation, strengthening of the junior pathway and the ever greater demands of professional tennis. Whether Roehampton becomes the new key address of Britain’s tennis elite will depend on the land purchase, planning, the relationship with the AELTC, public procedures and financial feasibility. According to the available information, the idea is already developed enough to open one of the more important infrastructure questions in British tennis ahead of the central weeks of the grass-court season.
Sources:
- The Times – report on the LTA’s plan for an expanded national training centre in Roehampton and the proposal to buy neighbouring land (link)
- The Times – report on the possible sale of the Bank of England estate in Roehampton and the existing AELTC lease (link)
- LTA – official description of the National Tennis Centre, its courts, accommodation and sports services (link)
- LTA – annual report and announcement on participation in tennis and padel during 2025 (link)
- LTA – official description of the Player Pathway programme and player-development goals (link)
- LTA – official description of the National Academy programme for the development of elite junior players (link)
- Wimbledon – official data on the qualifying tournament in Roehampton for The Championships 2026 (link)
- Wimbledon – official information on the Wimbledon Park Project and planning status (link)
- Bank of England – statement on the 15-year lease of the sports centre and grounds in Roehampton to the All England Lawn Tennis Club (link)
- WOO architects – official information on the architectural studio’s sports and infrastructure projects (link)