Murray mound turns into health & safety battle ground

There has been little love lost this month between Wimbledon officials and the head of the Health and Safety Executive in a row over the safety of Murray Mound.

HSE chairwoman, Judith Hackitt, lambasted Wimbledon bosses for turning off a giant screen showing Andy Murray's first-round match on the Centre Court during a downpour on Monday.

In an open letter to LTA chief Roger Draper and Wimbledon chief executive Ian Ritchie, Hackitt suggested that health and safety concerns were being made the scapegoat for the decision to shut Murray Mound, pointing out that there was nothing in HSE law to prompt the shutdown.

"Health and safety is concerned with proportionate management of real risks caused by work, not attempting to eliminate every minor risk from every moment of people's lives," she wrote.

"If the LTA was concerned about people slipping and suing for their injuries, the message should have been made clear the decision was 'on insurance grounds'.

"While we can do nothing about the weather, we will not let the excuses pass unchallenged."

But Ian Ritchie, the chief executive of the LTA, responded with his own open letter defending his decision and accusing Judith Hackitt of not understanding what she was talking about.

"How does she know?" asked Ritchie. "She wasn't here on Monday. It doesn't matter what the legislation or Act is, we have an absolute duty to act for the safety of the people in the ground."

"It must be entirely inappropriate for the chairman of the HSE to make such public comments on specific decisions reached at an event when you have absolutely no knowledge of the circumstances or the reason for any decision made at the Championships," wrote Ritchie, stressing that his decision was made jointly with his event-safety officer and the police ground commander.

He continued: "It is further regrettable that you made no effort at all to discuss the facts with the Club prior to your letter being publicly distributed. To use your own phrase I could not let your ill-informed comments 'pass unchallenged'."

Judith Hackitt declined to make any further comment, refusing "to be drawn into a game of ping pong."