The UK government appears to be u-turning on its approval of a hyperscale data centre planned for a greentbelt area outside of London following pushback from the local council and environmental advocates.

Plans were approved for a 90MW data centre in Buckinghamshire last year despite the local council rejecting the plans put forward by developers Greystoke Land and Altrad UK.

Residents were concerned about the associate energy needs and costs of running the data centre, as well as its environmental impact on air quality and local wildlife.

Prior to approval, inspectors of the land advised that the data centre could impact the local landscape, but said that the need for data centres was more important that these potential effects.

Further, the government said that an environmental impact assessment (EIA) was not required for the data centre plans.

Since then, however, Foxglove and Global Action Plan, environmental campaign groups, brought claims against the developers saying that the energy use of the data centre was not considered, both in terms of demand impacting the local supply as well as its environmental impact.

While the court hearing was not attended by the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government, a letter sent and seen by PA Media by the Treasury Solicitor admitted that the “claim is arguable and the permission should be quashed.”

The letter said that the government approved the data centre plans under the assumption that “mitigation measures” would be put in place, such as the “sourcing of low carbon energy” to negate the issues of carbon emissions and energy demand.

However, the letter admitted that the government “no longer considers these could be secured,” and therefore the current plans were approved under a “serious logical error.”

The full legal court case will proceed later, but the case so far points to the growing gap between community perception and developer zeal when it comes to data centre developments. The lack of requirements for environmental impact assessments, and the ability for the UK government to overturn a local council’s rejection, makes the national government’s enthusiasm for data centres that much more questionable.

The environmental impact goes far beyond landscape effects and carbon emissions, as biodiversity in greenbelts could be threatened. Further, energy demand without proper supply allocation could impact local communities and prices.

Microsoft said that data centre developers such as itself, should take on the extra cost burden that data centre energy demand may drive, but without legal protections, this good-faith initiative may only be implemented on a voluntary basis.

Scotland is seeing this debate manifest closer to home, as the need to power the AI revolution collides with efforts to protect the natural environment, keep energy prices down, and improve clean energy resources.

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Action To Protect Rural Scotland shared with The National that three protected sites are being considered as sites by developers for new hyperscale data centres. Two of these locations include greenbelt sites, one outside Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, and the other on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

While nations accept the apparent need for AI data centres to keep up with technological advancements, the consistent controversy surrounding development plans reveal major gaps in environmental regulation and local authority when it comes to responsibly building these structures of ‘critical national infrastructure’.