As the data center industry booms, the English countryside becomes a battleground

ABBOTS LANGLEY, England. Originally built to store the harvest of peasant farmers, the Tithe Barn on the outskirts of the English village of Abbots Langley has been transformed into homes that hold centuries of history. Now its residents are fighting to stop the development next door that represents the future.

A proposal to build a data center in a field across the road has been rejected by local authorities amid fierce opposition from villagers. But he is getting a second chance from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government, which is introducing reforms to boost economic growth after his Labor Party won an election in July.

Residents of Abbots Langley, located 18 miles (30 kilometers) north-west of London, are concerned the site will put pressure on local resources and create noise and traffic that will damage the character of the quiet village, which is home to just over 20 000 people. Just off the main street is a church with a stone tower dating back to the 12th century, and further down the road is a picturesque circular courtyard with rustic thatched cottages that were once a farmhouse modeled on the one built for the French queen Marie Antoinette.

“It’s just terribly inappropriate,” said Stuart Lewis, 70, who lives in one of the converted houses at the 600-year-old Tithe Barn. “I think any reasonable person anywhere would say, ‘Wait, they need a data center?’ This is not the place for that.”

As the artificial intelligence boom drives demand for cloud computing from server farms around the world, such projects pit business considerations, national priorities and local interests against each other.

UK Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has intervened in appeals brought by the developers of three data center projects after they were rejected by local authorities, taking the decision out of the hands of town planners. The proposals include Abbots Langley and two projects in Buckinghamshire, which lies west of London. The first decision is expected by January.

The projects are controversial because the data centers will be built on green belt land set aside to prevent urbanization. Rayner wants to use the green belt for development, saying much of it is of poor quality. For example, one proposed project in Buckinghamshire would redevelop an industrial park next to a busy highway.

“Although the land is officially greenbelt, there is nothing ‘green’ about the site today,” said Stephen Beard, global head of data centers at Knight Frank, the property consultancy working on the project.

“It’s actually an eyesore and very noticeable on the M25,” he said.

Greystoke, the company behind the Abbots Langley center and a second project in Buckinghamshire to be built on a former landfill site, did not respond to requests for comment. In an online Abbots Langley video, a company spokesperson says, “We did a comprehensive search of sites, and this one is the best.” It does not specify which companies can use the center.

The British government is making data centers a key part of its economic growth plans, deeming them “critical national infrastructure” to give businesses the confidence to invest in them. Starmer announced deals to create new centers, including a 10 billion pound ($13 billion) investment from private equity firm Blackstone to build Europe’s largest artificial intelligence data center in northeast England.

The Abbots Langley data center land is currently used for horse grazing. It is bordered on the other two sides by an affordable housing cluster and a highway.

Greystoke’s plans to build two large buildings totaling 84,000 square meters (904,00 sq ft) and up to 20 meters (66 ft) in height have alarmed Lewis and other village residents who fear it will dwarf everything else nearby.

They also question Greystoke’s promise to create up to 260 jobs.

“Everything will be automated, so they won’t need people,” said technical consultant Jennifer Stirrup, 51, who lives in the area.

Not everyone in the village is against it.

Retiree Brian Power says he would welcome the data center, believing it would benefit the area in the same way as another big project across the village, Warner Bros.’ Tour of the studio with the Harry Potter exhibition.

“It will bring some jobs, whatever. It will be good. Yeah. No problem. Because if it doesn’t come, it will go somewhere else,” Power, 56, said.

One of the biggest problems associated with data centers is their environmental impact, especially the huge amount of electricity they require. Greystock says the facility will consume 96 megawatts of “IT load.” But James Felstead, the company’s renewable energy director and Lewis’ neighbor, said the area’s electricity grid would not be able to cope with so much extra demand.

The problem is being seen across Europe, where data center power demand is expected to triple by the end of the decade, according to consultancy McKinsey. While the data boom fueled by artificial intelligence has prompted Google, Amazon and Microsoft to consider nuclear power as a source of clean energy, concerns about its environmental footprint have already raised tensions over data centers in other countries.

In September, Google was forced to abandon plans to build a $200 million data center in the Chilean capital of Santiago after community complaints about potential water and energy consumption.

In Ireland, where many Silicon Valley companies have European headquarters, the network operator has temporarily halted new data centers around Dublin until 2028 over concerns they are using too much electricity.

A massive data center project in northern Virginia narrowly won county approval last year amid strong opposition from residents concerned about its environmental impact. Other places such as Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Singapore have imposed various restrictions on data centers.

Public knowledge of the industry is still low, but “people are increasingly aware that these data centers are quite problematic,” said Sebastian Lehued, a lecturer in ethics, artificial intelligence and society at King’s College London who has studied the case of Google in Chile.

As awareness of their environmental impact grows, Leued said, “I’m sure we’ll have more opposition from different communities.”