Nearly 30,000 call for moratorium on data centres

A petition calling for a moratorium on planning permission for data centres and battery energy storage sites (BESS) has been rejected by the government.

A councillor from North Devon set up the petition after plans emerged for an AI data centre and battery energy storage site in Torrington.

Nearly 30,000 people signed the petition from Cheryl Cottle-Hunkin, cabinet member for rural affairs for Devon County Council, which called on the government to pause all data centre and BESS plans outside of AI growth zones.

The government said it had no plans to pause data centres and battery storage systems as they were vital for growth and already faced strict local planning processes.

The £13bn data centre and BESS planned for Torrington would be one of the largest in Europe.

In the petition Cottle-Hunkin, Liberal Democrat, also called for mandatory investigations of the financing of all data centre and BESS projects and said rural areas were "especially vulnerable" to such plans.

The government was required to respond to the petition once it passed 10,000 signatures - on Friday afternoon it had 28,500 signatures.

In response to the government's decision, Cottle-Hunkin said she was now hoping to get 100,000 signatures to get the issue debated in parliament.

She said: "We need an urgent national conversation on AI and associated infrastructure.

"We need to make sure it's on the right scale and in the right place and not in Great Torrington."

The area is one of seven biosphere reserves in the UK and Unesco said if prospective plans went ahead in the North Devon Biosphere, that would have to be factored into any decision to allow the area to maintain its classification.

No formal planning application for the Torrington site has yet been made by developer Xlinks.

The Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade said in its response to the petition it had no plans to introduce a moratorium, to introduce mandatory rural impact assessments or mandatory investigations into the financing of plans.

It said BESS were "essential for delivering a decarbonised power sector by 2030 and net zero by 2050".

The government said data centres were "a critical part of the UK's digital infrastructure" and "underpin everyday services and provide the computing capacity needed for scientific research, advancing innovation, and economic growth".

The government designated data centres as critical national infrastructure, in 2024, on an equal footing as water, energy and emergency services systems.

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