Plans to construct one of Europe’s largest artificial intelligence (AI) datacentres in north Devon have sparked significant opposition from local residents and environmental campaigners alike. The proposal involves developing a 1.5-gigawatt datacentre campus alongside a 1.8GW battery energy storage system (BESS) on approximately 340 hectares (850 acres) of countryside near the village of Great Torrington, located within a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) biosphere reserve.
The British company behind the project, XLinks, has acquired the rural land, which features rolling hills, meadows, and productive farmland. The proposed site includes five buildings ranging from 15 to 40 metres in height, with the two largest structures covering around nine hectares each. According to campaigners, these buildings are large enough to contain Exeter Cathedral multiple times over. XLinks has indicated that only a third of the land will be developed, with the remainder set aside for public access and habitat restoration, including relocating listed buildings on the site to be converted into a visitor centre.
Despite the company’s assurances, the project has stirred widespread local and national disapproval. Opponents question the suitability of placing such a massive infrastructure development within a protected biosphere, raising concerns about its impact on biodiversity, water consumption, and air quality. The area remains under a hosepipe ban following a record-hot summer, heightening worries about the datacentre’s potential water use. While XLinks claims the facility will be water self-sufficient, internal documents revealed through freedom of information requests suggest water consumption could reach as high as 2.9 billion litres annually under extreme weather conditions, such as droughts and heatwaves.
Community members have also highlighted risks associated with the large-scale BESS, which would house approximately 1,720 containerised battery units. Concerns include potential fire hazards, noise pollution, and the industrialisation of rural landscapes. Environmental campaigners argue the UK currently lacks specific policies or comprehensive data on the siting and scale of battery storage facilities, describing the regulatory environment as a "wild west."
Tensions over transparency have escalated after activists uncovered evidence of private discussions between XLinks and Torridge District Council officials dating back to March 2025—more than a year before the project was publicly announced. The council issued a letter of “in-principle support” in April 2025, prior to any environmental impact assessment or public consultation, prompting accusations that the proposal has been treated as a foregone conclusion by some local authorities. Torridge District Council has defended its pre-application engagement as standard and confidential, stating it does not equate to approval.
A public meeting in Great Torrington featured Elizabeth Humphreys from the US campaign group Not in My Valley, which successfully lobbied for a permanent datacentre ban in California’s Coachella Valley due to environmental and resource concerns. Humphreys emphasized the global nature of resistance to large-scale datacentre developments, calling for collective efforts to push back against corporate interests.
Efforts to engage communities through private meetings have met mixed responses; Monkleigh Parish Council declined an invitation to a closed meeting arranged by XLinks’ public relations firm, citing calls for full transparency, including releasing meeting recordings and minutes.
The project has drawn significant public attention, with over 30,000 people signing a petition led by Cheryl Cottle-Hunkin, cabinet member for rural affairs on Devon County Council, urging the government to pause datacentre and battery storage projects outside designated AI growth zones. Cottle-Hunkin has called for a comprehensive national dialogue on AI infrastructure planning to ensure developments are appropriately scaled and located.
XLinks maintains that the datacentre campus will bring significant investment and create up to 1,200 jobs, while contributing essential clean energy infrastructure to the region. The company states it is conducting thorough environmental and wildlife surveys and aims to surpass legal biodiversity enhancement requirements.
An official environmental impact assessment is ongoing. Torridge District Council has postponed a planned public consultation initially scheduled for July but indicated that when planning applications are submitted, they will be publicly reviewed in line with established processes. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero highlighted the importance of battery storage projects in securing energy resilience and announced commissioning a strategic spatial energy plan to improve the coordination of energy infrastructure nationwide.