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. Recently, the tree has turn out to be a website of protest, too. A poster tied to its trunk reads “No to Knowledge Centre.”
In September 2024, a property developer utilized for permission to construct an industrial-scale information middle—one of many largest in Europe—on the farmland. When locals caught wind, they began a Fb group in hopes of blocking the venture. 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 information middle operator Equinix acquired the land; it intends to interrupt floor this yr.
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 informed me that they object to the information middle on numerous 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 great thing about strolling on this space is coming via this area,” says Naylor. “It’s extremely vital for psychological well being and well-being.”
Because the UK authorities races to satisfy the voracious demand for information facilities that can be utilized to coach AI fashions and run AI purposes, equally massive services stand to be constructed throughout the nation. 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
Because the mid-Twentieth century, London has been hemmed in on all sides by a virtually contiguous patchwork of land often known as the greenbelt, made up of farms, forest, meadows, and parks. Beneath UK regulation, development is simply permitted on greenbelt land in “very particular circumstances.” The intention 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 launched a brand new land classification—grey belt—to explain underperforming parcels of greenbelt on which development must be extra readily permitted. At across the similar time, the federal government introduced it might deal with information facilities as “vital nationwide infrastructure.” Collectively, these adjustments have cleared the best way for a raft of recent information facilities to be constructed throughout the UK.
As they try and develop fashions able to surpassing human intelligence, the world’s largest AI labs are planning to spend trillions of {dollars} in combination 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 accepted the Potters Bar information middle, its officers concluded that the farmland met the definition of grey belt. In addition they stated their determination was coloured by the federal government’s help for the information middle trade. The advantages from an infrastructure improvement and financial standpoint, they concluded, outweighed the lack of inexperienced area.
“Folks have this barely romantic concept that every one greenbelt 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 greenbelt land.”
