UK to see weekend protests against ‘dirty datacentres’

Campaigners against UK datacentre development will coordinate protests this weekend to voice their opposition to “dirty datacentres”. The days of action have been organised by environmental charity Global Action Plan UK and will focus on calls for stronger protections for the environment against the backdrop of datacentre expansion.

The days of action – planned for Friday 27 and Saturday 28 February – will draw together organisations that target specific datacentre developments and broader environmental campaigning groups. 

These include campaigners concerned with datacentre projects at Iver Heath in Buckinghamshire and East Havering in Essex. 

The Iver Heath site was granted planning permission for a datacentre development by Greystoke, but that decision is now being legally contested on the grounds that an environmental impact assessment should have taken place.

In East Havering, campaigners are objecting to the development of a datacentre on greenbelt land. The proposed development by Digital Reef has been stuck in the planning process for some time, but will soon see the launch of public consultation. 

It also includes Action to Protect Rural Scotland, which has been active in trying to oppose datacentre development in Scotland, such as the development at South Gyle near Edinburgh. 

Other campaigning organisations involved in the day of action include Biofuel Watch, Corporate Europe Observatory, Foxglove, Friends of the Earth, Global Justice Now, London Mining Network and Pull the Plug.

Owen Espley, datacentres campaigns manager at Global Action Plan, said: “This weekend, communities challenging hyperscale datacentres where they live will come together for the first time to take coordinated action.”

He added: “We hope these first national days of action will bring communities together to understand they are not alone in their concerns about the growing environmental threats posed by rapid datacentre expansion, and that we can all be part of creating a better future where infrastructure works for communities and climate, not against them.”

Espley further urged people concerned about datacentre developments in their area to “share knowledge and skills and learn how they can engage with the planning system to ensure their concerns are taken seriously”, and also to “hold local and national representatives to account to make sure they are taking decisions in the public interest, not being swayed by big tech lobbyists and developers”.

Concerns cited by the campaign include that datacentres put strain on water and power supplies – in one case, actually delaying a housing project – can create environmental nuisance to local communities, and can jeopardise government intentions to move to net zero by 2030.

They cite a recent Ofgem report that calculated there are currently 140 proposed datacentre projects that would require about 50GW of electricity generation. Total UK generation capacity is around 70GW, at present, with demand running at 50% to 70% of generation during the year. 

Some industry experts believe that datacentre developers need to do better to engage with all communities with a stake in plans.

Brad Johnson, director of electric utilities at Bentley Systems, which consults with developers involved with large-scale infrastructure projects, said: “The phrase I’ve been hearing is, how can utilities in these datacentres acquire a ‘social licence’? That’s not just consent from a council or something like that, but how they can be a good neighbour in their community.” 

Johnson said tools exist to allow project plans to be visualised for all interested parties.

“It’s not just a nice artistic rendering of how these facilities land in communities, but also making that data accessible to all interested parties. So that it’s a more integrated community-centric process rather than, ‘Hey, we’ve got a big fence and it’s a mystery’.”

Seamus Dunne, UK and Ireland managing director at colocation giant Digital Realty, which runs more than 350 datacentres globally, agreed that developers need to be good neighbours, but pointed out that datacentre infrastructure is critical to the things we expect from the digital economy.

He said: “We have to be good citizens and good neighbours. That’s a given, with zero argument. I think what some of the protests that I see and read about are really about ‘not in my backyard’.

“It’s like we know we need and want a digital economy. So you need to have infrastructure and datacentres as part of that infrastructure. But we need to be good citizens, and the key is efficiency and modernisation of our assets, being committed to the environment, and renewable energy.”