Residents in Newport and Cardiff are fighting large AI datacentres planned or already built beside their homes, according to a Guardian report. The backlash is spreading across Britain while the government keeps pushing for faster datacentre growth.
What happened
The Guardian visited a small group of 27 houses on the western edge of Newport, in south Wales. The houses sit next to a 46-acre datacentre campus that is getting bigger fast. Its newest building is a hyperscale datacentre 23 metres high, and it blocks most of the view from Dale Johnston’s back garden. Johnston told the paper that the sun “used to come around here and it was lovely”. He called the way residents have been treated “disgusting”.
His worries are about what happens once the centre is switched on. According to the Guardian, the building will use 36 sets of air blast coolers to keep its chips from overheating. These are likely to make a constant drone. It will also have 60 back-up diesel generators, and regular testing of them could give off harmful fumes. Johnston already keeps his bathroom window shut against the hum of another building on the campus. He says that councillors and MPs who back the development have not taken up his invitations to visit.
The same thing is happening across the country. The Guardian reports that 315 hyperscale datacentres are waiting to connect to the national grid. Together they would need 73GW of power. That is 28GW more than the typical peak demand of 45GW on a cold winter’s day. Outside London, Wales already has the most datacentre capacity, and more hyperscale sites are planned on former industrial and urban land.
In Cardiff, the Labour-run council wants to sell a park and ride site to a developer, Curtis Hall, for a hyperscale facility. Doctors, nurses and other NHS staff use the site to catch free buses to the Heath hospital, the largest hospital in Wales. The Guardian says the centre would use up to 150MW of electricity. People have lodged more than 1,200 planning objections, and protesters have disrupted council meetings. Last month the new Plaid Cymru-led Welsh government told the council to pause the application while it decides whether to take the decision away from councillors.
Sue Elias, a retired librarian and member of the community union Acorn, has collected 1,300 signatures from staff and patients for an open letter. It is meant to show how much the park and ride is used. Nick Richards lives on a new council-built estate of 100 homes across the Rhymney River. He told the Guardian that his home is 300 metres from a planned temporary energy centre with seven gas turbines. A care home would be 150 metres from them. According to the developer’s documents, the turbines would power the site around the clock for five years. “I feel trapped,” he said.
Why it matters if you live in United Kingdom
Government policy is behind much of this. The Guardian says Keir Starmer’s Labour government set up five AI growth zones to get datacentres through planning faster and connect them to the grid sooner. The new prime minister, Andy Burnham, has rejected calls for a moratorium and says datacentres bring economic benefits. If you live near a former industrial site, a business park or council-owned land, a proposal could appear close to you.
Local decisions can also be overturned. In east London, residents are campaigning against a datacentre on Brick Lane. The communities secretary, Angela Rayner, overturned the council’s decision to block it. So a council refusal does not always end a scheme. Anyone who wants to object should follow the case past the council stage.
The Cardiff case shows how everyday services can be affected. A midwife at the bus stop told the Guardian that without the park and ride she would probably not keep working at the hospital. Residents worried about health, noise or house prices can take part in the planning process. In Cardiff, people have done that through formal objections, petitions and open letters.
Opposition is growing quickly. Owen Espley of the environmental charity Global Action Plan helps residents’ groups organise. He told the Guardian that “every other week a new group has popped up” and that petitions are gathering thousands of signatures in days. He is calling for strong standards for private datacentres and for a public computing strategy. As an example of public computing, the article points to the Isambard-AI facility at Bristol University, which supports heart disease and dementia research.
What to watch next
The next step in Cardiff is the Welsh government’s decision. It could take the park and ride application away from the city council, and that would be a test of how ministers in Wales handle these cases. In London, the Brick Lane protests are likely to keep pressure on Rayner’s department.
The bigger issue is the grid. With 315 hyperscale projects in the queue and a combined demand far above the current winter peak, how the grid shares out capacity will matter to households as well as tech firms. The Guardian reports that in the US, three-quarters of Americans now oppose datacentre development. More than 500 counties and municipalities there have passed temporary or permanent bans. Opposition in the UK is not yet at that level, but campaigners told the paper that it is growing fast.
Source: The Guardian
Sources
- The Guardian: The datacentre next door: on the frontline of tech’s latest David v Goliath battle, accessed 24 October 2026
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