A brief drive from London, the city of Potters Bar is separated from the village of South Mimms by 85 acres of rolling farmland segmented by a scribble of hedgerows. In one of many fields, a lone oak serves as a relaxation cease alongside a public footpath. These days, the tree has develop into a website of protest, too. A poster tied to its trunk reads: “NO TO DATA CENTRE.”
In September 2024, a property developer applied for permission to construct an industrial-scale information heart—one of many largest in Europe—on the farmland. When locals caught wind, they began a Facebook group in hopes of blocking the undertaking. Greater than 1,000 folks signed up.
The native authorities has thus far dismissed the group’s complaints. In January 2025, it granted planning permission. The next October, multinational datacenter operator Equinix acquired the land; it intends to interrupt floor this 12 months.
On a dismal Thursday afternoon in January, I huddled round a gate main onto the farmland with Ros Naylor—one of many Fb group’s admins—and 6 different native residents. They instructed me that they object to the information heart on varied grounds, however significantly to the lack of inexperienced area, which they see as a useful escape route from city to countryside and buffer in opposition to the freeway and gas cease seen on the horizon. “The fantastic thing about strolling on this space is coming by means of this area,” says Naylor. “It’s extremely necessary for psychological well being and wellbeing.”
Because the UK authorities races to meet the voracious demand for information facilities that can be utilized to coach AI fashions and run AI purposes, equally giant amenities stand to be constructed across the country. For the individuals who stay in closest proximity, although, the prospect that AI would possibly buoy the financial system or infuse new capabilities into their smartphone is skinny comfort for what they think about a disruption to a countryside lifestyle.
Bonfire of Purple Tape
For the reason that mid-Twentieth century, London has been hemmed in on all sides by a virtually contiguous patchwork of land referred to as the inexperienced belt, made up of farms, forest, meadows, and parks. Beneath UK regulation, building is barely permitted on inexperienced belt land in “very special circumstances.” The goal is to guard areas of countryside from city encroachment and cease neighboring cities from melding into an amorphous blob.
After the current authorities got here to energy in 2024, nevertheless, the UK introduced a new land classification—gray belt—to explain underperforming parcels of inexperienced belt on which building needs to be extra readily permitted. At across the similar time, the federal government introduced it could deal with information facilities as “essential nationwide infrastructure.” Collectively, these adjustments have cleared the way for a raft of new data centers to be constructed throughout the UK.
As they try to develop fashions able to surpassing human intelligence, the world’s largest AI labs are planning to spend trillions of dollars in mixture on infrastructure. Throughout the globe, wherever new information facilities are being constructed, builders are encountering organized resistance from impacted communities.
When the native planning authority authorised the Potters Bar information heart, its officers concluded that the farmland met the definition of gray belt. In addition they mentioned their resolution was coloured by the federal government’s help for the information heart trade. The advantages from an infrastructure growth and financial standpoint, they concluded, outweighed the lack of inexperienced area.
“Folks have this barely romantic thought that each one inexperienced belt land contains pristine, rolling inexperienced fields. The truth is that this website, together with many others, is something however that,” says Jeremy Newmark, chief of Hertsmere Borough Council, the constituency that encompasses Potters Bar. “It’s a patch of very low-performing inexperienced belt land.”
