The Small English Town Swept Up in the Global AI Arms Race (wired.com) 24
Residents of Potters Bar, a small town just north of London, are trying to block what would be one of Europe's largest data centers from being built on 85 acres of rolling farmland that separates their community from the neighboring village of South Mimms. Multinational operator Equinix acquired the land last October after the local council granted planning permission in January 2025, and the company intends to break ground this year on a development it estimates will cost more than $5 billion.
The UK government's decision to classify data centers as "critical national infrastructure" and a new "gray belt" land designation that loosens building restrictions on underperforming greenbelt parcels helped clear the path for approval -- even though objections from locals outweighed signatures of support by nearly two-to-one during the public consultation. A protest group of more than 1,000 residents has since appealed to a third-party ombudsman and the UK's Office of Environmental Protection, but has so far failed to overturn the decision.
The UK government's decision to classify data centers as "critical national infrastructure" and a new "gray belt" land designation that loosens building restrictions on underperforming greenbelt parcels helped clear the path for approval -- even though objections from locals outweighed signatures of support by nearly two-to-one during the public consultation. A protest group of more than 1,000 residents has since appealed to a third-party ombudsman and the UK's Office of Environmental Protection, but has so far failed to overturn the decision.
Hard drives won't like this location (Score:5, Funny)
"... being built on 85 acres of rolling farmland..."
Land that's rolling around will probably create too much vibration for data center components.
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Better yet, rather than locate it just outside London, move it to Scotland, where, if your servers are direct liquid-cooled, you can use free air cooling 365 days a year with a healthy margin against the hottest temperature ever recorded. Outside London, that is simply not possible, as the hottest day on record exceeds the maximum air temperature at which you can use free air cooling. You are now into evaporative or compressive cooling, which is not green.
On that front, basically all the electrons in Scotla
Years of blocking everyting, except now! (Score:2)
Seems odd that the typical anti-building, anti-development (extract fees/taxes from companies) for increasing government revenue over the last 50 years is suddenly not important when the economy and national defense are declining.
Is it about the environment, preserving green spaces, preserving historic town centers; or is it about money?
And how will they compensate the thousands (millions?) of people and their higher cost of living forced by the regulations on preserving historical buildings?
I am not attack
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In all seriousness, NIMBYs love to use "farmland" and "green belt" as an excuse in the UK. We really need some new towns and infrastructure, but it's damn near impossible to build anywhere suitable because of people objecting.
The current government promised to fix it, but so far it doesn't seem to be having much effect.
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In all seriousness, NIMBYs love to use "farmland" and "green belt" as an excuse in the UK. We really need some new towns and infrastructure, but it's damn near impossible to build anywhere suitable because of people objecting.
The current government promised to fix it, but so far it doesn't seem to be having much effect.
Pretty much this.
NIMBYs: We want jobs and infrastructure.
Also NIMBYs: Not like that, we don't want you building places to provide jobs and infrastructure.
I read an article on the BBC about a deprived town in County Durham, people complaining that they get no support from the government and quickly read on to see that they overwhelmingly voted Brexit... now are voting Reform... And still don't even have an inkling of an idea that they're the architects of their own misery. Vote for things that make th
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Data centres create almost no jobs for the amount of investment involved. Basically just a few minimum wage security guards.
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Data centres create almost no jobs for the amount of investment involved. Basically just a few minimum wage security guards.
Except for the construction industry... and the tech industry (which that area of the home counties tends to have a lot of), there's a reason they're not building it out in Bumfuckinghamshire where land is cheap.
Well then, (Score:5, Insightful)
The UK government's decision to classify data centers as "critical national infrastructure" and a new "gray belt" land designation that loosens building restrictions on underperforming greenbelt parcels helped clear the path for approval -- even though objections from locals outweighed signatures of support by nearly two-to-one during the public consultation.
There's yet one more thing that our (USA) government will be stealing soon. Because there has been a lot of public protest about datacenter buildouts being pushed. I'm assuming in America they'll also attach some national security concern to it so that any form of protest is seen as treason.
I'm just vaguely curious how governments around the world continue to push the narrative that they are servants of the people. It seems to be they're servants of the money. People and their needs / desires don't even seem to register unless they have the ability to write really big checks. Even setting aside whether these AI datacenters are actually going to be useful by the time they're completed, if a large enough percentage of people in a given area are against them, shouldn't it at least be a consideration? Or have we reached such a peak of stupidity when it comes to AI that society just needs to steamroll people and call them luddites if they dare say anything negative about building out giant datacenters to suck up land, water, electricity and whatever other resources they may need in the area?
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how governments around the world continue to push the narrative that they are servants of the people
When they bother to push this false narrative at all, they usually go with utilitarianism. They maintain that a lot of people benefit a lot from the presence of the data centers, and that outweighs the few people who suffer a little from increased utility costs.
They could also go with "rich people are people too, and they are obviously more important than poor people, so serving the interests of rich people
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You have 15 Moderator Points! Use 'em or lose 'em!
Can't use em. Doesn't fucking work!
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>> Doesn't fucking work!
Seems to be a chair-keyboard interface problem.
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Cunny funt.
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Both are blocking scripts on the cloudfront servers hostname: d3tglifpd8whs6.cloudfront.net
Everyone wants the taxes and the service (Score:2)
Building data centers where they are unwanted (Score:1)
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That's why they classify them as "critical national infrastructure," so they can surround them with their own drones, shock/lethal fences, armed guards, dogs with bees in their mouths that when they bark they shoot bees at you, etc. Can't just have Cletus out there taking potshots at the rooftop chillers, or whatever the British equivalent of Cletus uses without guns everywhere.
Complain about endangered species. (Score:1)
That's how everyone else combats project plans.
Sounds familiar.... (Score:2)
The UK government's decision to classify data centers as "critical national infrastructure" and a new "gray belt" land designation
Sounds a lot like Trump's EOs.
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As much as I dislike defence spending, weapons could at least be useful if Ireland invades, or the Martians, which has similar likelyhood. Or they could sell them to Saudis or somebody similar. Datacenters otoh have zero value, all they do is raise electricity prices. I wouldn't be super surprised if they cause brownouts or water supply problems in this town, UK's ancient utility grid may well struggle to cope with a sudden peak in demand.
Why can't they designate housing "critical national infrastructure"?
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a new "gray belt" land designation that loosens building restrictions on underperforming greenbelt parcels
What the fuck does that even mean? How do areas of land "underperform"?
By being covered with grass, trees, bugs and other things that don't have an immediate, measurable positive impact on corporate profits, of course. Much better that they be covered with pavement and data centers, and later on with gray goo.