The UK’s rush to build data centres for AI must be stopped.
Campaigners across Britain will join together to oppose Big Tech's unchecked expansion of hyperscale data centres.
Global Action Plan UK is coordinating two days of action from Friday, 27 February 2026 and with communities and campaigners across the country, calling for stronger protection of our climate in the face of rapid hyperscale data centre expansion.
Local campaigners and NGOs concerned by hyperscale data centre growth are organising public-facing activities to draw attention to the impacts this infrastructure will have on the environment and their local communities.
Devastating
Data centres put a massive strain on the UK’s finite water and power supplies, imposing on local communities, delaying much needed housing projects and jeopardising our move to clean power by 2030.
The British Government has admitted it made a “serious logical error” in approving a large data centre in Buckinghamshire without sufficient environmental protections.
Oliver Hayes, head of campaigns at Global Action Plan, said: “Big Tech’s unchecked construction of hyperscale AI data centres is putting the UK’s climate targets at risk.
"Communities across the UK are fighting to have their voices heard but are being drowned out while developers and big tech lobbyists hold the ear of government.”
“Giving Big Tech the power to monopolise our energy and water supply at the expense of our communities and climate, without any guarantee that these data centres will benefit society, is as reckless as it is foolish.”
Jake Simms, just transition coordinator at the London Mining Network, said: “The UK’s data centre expansions will require vast increases in mineral mining, with devastating impacts for mining affected communities globally.
Community-designed
"Skyrocketing demand for copper, aluminium and silicon needed for hardware and chips is driving a mining boom resulting in water scarcity, ecosystem collapse, and violence against Indigenous communities.
"Communities are demanding the right to say no to mining expansions on their lands. The UK’s rush to build data centres for AI must be stopped.”
Leigh Tugwood, co-chair of Iver Heath Residents Association, said: "We are not Hi-Tech NIMBYs by any means, and we welcome the potential benefits of IT.
"That said, the recent Woodlands Park planning debacle has highlighted our concerns that the UK government is so keen to fast track data centre development through the planning process as 'vital infrastructure' for economic growth, that there has not been enough scrutiny and oversight of potential impacts – particularly to local communities.
The UK’s rush to build data centres for AI must be stopped.
"We are, therefore, in support of a moratorium on all future hyperscale data centre development unless and until there is informed debate, a public enquiry and a meaningful community-designed engagement framework that ensures ownership of the process by those most likely to be impacted. Global Tech-Bro interests should be required to respect this, not ignore it."
Consume
Ian Pirie, coordinator for Friends of the Earth Havering, said: “Havering Friends of the Earth considers that such a large and resource-hungry development is completely inappropriate in a semi-rural Green Belt area, which is already under threat from developments such as the Lower Thames Crossing. Construction would mean eight to 10 years of noise and disruption for residents.
"The data centre would consume a huge amount of electrical power, most of which would end up as heat. It is proposed to divert some of this into enclosed "vertical farming" units, but we don't see how these could compensate for the loss of so much traditional open farmland.
"A vast amount of water would also be needed for cooling, in an area where water supplies are already challenged.
"Havering Council is having financial difficulties, and our worry is they are seeing the data centre as a potential source of income, while disregarding the environmental damage and the stress that such a massive construction will cause to local people.”
It is estimated that more than a hundred data centres are planned across the UK, the largest of which would consume more electricity than double all the households in Wales.
Powered
The energy regulator Ofgem has disclosed that about 140 data centres are seeking grid connections, requiring 50 gigawatts of capacity at peak time. By contrast, Britain’s peak demand on a recent winter’s day was 45GW.
The growth of these hyperscale data centres in both quantity and magnitude also poses a considerable threat to UK water security. Thames Water estimates a single data centre requires up to 19 million litres of water per day.
The UN Special Rapporteur on water has called for a moratorium on data centre expansion due to the huge demand for water that data centres create to cool their servers.
Polling commissioned by Beyond Fossil Fuels last year and conducted by Savanta found that a majority of people in Britain want the Government and Big Tech to take action to protect the environment from the impacts of data centres.
The poll also found that more than three quarters of respondents believe data centres should only be built if they are powered by new, additional renewable energy.
This Author
Brendan Montague is a member of the editorial team of The Ecologist.
