The courts will have to rule on the All England Club’s controversial development plans for neighbouring Wimbledon Park golf course, after a local protest group confirmed on Monday that it has begun legal proceedings.

The AELTC seemed to have taken a decisive step forward in late September, when London’s deputy mayor Jules Pipe approved planning permission after a heated three-hour meeting at City Hall.

But even as Pipe made his announcement – which met with a chorus of boos and cries of “Shame on you” – members of the Save Wimbledon Park protest group were already planning their next move.

“We are just entering the third-set tie-break, and have plenty of aces to serve,” said retired local lawyer Christopher Coombe, as the City Hall meeting broke up.

The focus of this latest challenge is the recent case of Day vs Shropshire, in which the Supreme Court threw out plans to build a housing development on Greenfields Recreation Ground in Shrewsbury, ruling they were inconsistent with a 1926 statutory trust giving local residents the right to use the land.

The new case revolves around what might seem to be a straightforward question: Does a statutory trust exist on Wimbledon Park? The AELTC began their own legal proceedings in December, with the aim of establishing that there is not one. Save Wimbledon Park takes the opposite view.

It is already four years since the AELTC submitted their initial plans for the former golf course, and the delays have been so extensive that – whatever happens in the next stage of legal wrangling – there is now no prospect of the new courts opening before 2030.

While the AELTC insist that the expansion is necessary in order for Wimbledon to keep pace with improvements from other major tournaments, Save Wimbledon Park’s Jeremy Hudson said in a statement: “This step [the latest legal challenge] is not just for our local community but also important for many other Metropolitan Open Land spaces under threat of development.”