CW+ Premium Content/Computer Weekly

The government’s determination to fast-track the building of hyperscale datacentres, without assessing the environmental impact these projects will have on local communities, risks derailing plans to rapidly build out the nation’s compute capacity. That is the view of IT sustainability experts and environmental lobbyists, who are dismayed at the government’s decision to overturn planning permission blocks on three large-scale datacentre projects, without first assessing the impact these builds will have on local energy supplies or water usage patterns. The government’s actions could be about to come back to bite them, however, as one of these projects is now the subject of unprecedented legal action, being brought forward by environmental charity Global Action Plan and civil society group Foxglove. The legal challenge has garnered support from hundreds of individuals, who are providing thousands of pounds in funding to support Foxglove and Global Action Plan’s work. If this litigation succeeds, could it pave the way for the ...