TL;DR

Residents of North Ockendon, in the London Borough of Havering, are opposing a proposed data centre campus on green belt fields that the BBC says would be one of Europe’s largest if approved. Developer Digital Reef says the scheme would bring jobs and be the most sustainable anywhere. In a BBC London report published on 11 November, locals said it would bring years of construction, extra traffic and noise.

The local case against

Danny Leach, who lives nearby, said building could last “eight to 20 years” and bring about a thousand more vehicles a day, adding that the area already has two power cuts a month. Ian Pirie, from Friends of the Earth locally, called the planning process so far “very undemocratic”.

Digital Reef did not respond to the BBC. On its website, the company plans a 113-hectare ecology park covering over half the land, alongside local jobs and skills training. Havering Council leader Keith Prince said the council cannot stop a planning application being made, but would drive “the hardest bargain possible” for residents if the scheme proceeded.

London’s limits

The wider numbers explain the pressure. The UK has about 477 data centres, and Barbour ABI expects roughly 100 more, mostly in London and the South East, according to the BBC. Research commissioned by the Greater London Authority names energy as the “single most critical constraint” and puts new grid connections for data centres in London at seven to 13 years.

Water is the other flashpoint. Liz Stephens of the University of Reading told the BBC that Thames Water attributes about 30% of its forecast rise in demand to data centres. Matt Evans of techUK countered that UK sites use about 0.2% of non-household water.

The draft London Plan supports data centres in suitable places but says green belt land should be considered only where no brownfield site is available, and only where water and power capacity exists.

What it means

North Ockendon is the latest contested site we have covered. We reported on 6 November on protests including an east London rally, and the growth minister has said the UK will keep building data centres.

In our view, the draft London Plan’s brownfield-first test is the hurdle to watch. A green belt campus at this scale would need to show that no brownfield alternative exists, and that the grid and water supply can carry it, before local opposition even comes into play.