Call to Pull the Plug on Oxfordshire Data Centre Building

We call on the Central Government to impose an immediate moratorium on the construction of new data centres in Oxfordshire, until the people have held a Citizens' Assembly on data centres.

The UK aims to become the third largest provider of AI infrastructure in the world and plans to build over 100 centres to support the more than 500 data centres in place.

This is not what the public wants.

Scale of the issue

The UK government aims to become the third-largest provider of AI infrastructure in the world, with plans to build over 100 new data centres to supplement the more than 500 already in operation. These projects are being fast-tracked as “strategically important” under Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) designation.

Oxfordshire has become a focal point of those plans, with little input from the local community. It is currently experiencing a boom of data centre building, with plans to build massive data centres in Bicester, Didcot, and Culham, with many other proposals in process. South Oxfordshire currently has the highest number of data centre applications in England.

The residents of Oxfordshire have little to no say in how the Planning and Infrastructure Act will impact them. This new legislation limits the merits English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act and ensures that local voices remain silenced.

Impact on the housing crisis

The CNI designation allows data centres to jump the planning queue ahead of housing, hospitals, and industrial developments which communities need. We call on the government to prioritise building new homes for Welsh people rather than data centres for unsustainable AI models.

The environment

Data centres are profoundly environmentally damaging. They demand huge amounts of electricity and temporarily non-renewable water. A study suggests a 1-megawatt data centre uses enough electricity to power 1000 houses and 25.5 million litres of water. Projections suggest that, by 2030, global data centres will use more electricity than the entirety of Japan.

Cost of living

Data centres force expensive grid upgrades, as we've seen in London, and the consumer often foots the bill. AI drastically increases energy and water demand, which means it costs more for other uses. The costs of data centres are nationalised, the rewards privatised.

The Citizens' Assembly

Data centres do not build homes. They do not staff hospitals. They create a relentless demand on the energy grid and on water supplies. The government should prioritise the needs of people over Big Tech and pause the building of London data centres.