Google meets the neighbors and gets both barrels over its new UK datacenter

Summary

EXCLUSIVE Google invited residents living near its newly built datacenter north of London to meet the team at the local council offices on Wednesday evening – and was met with a barrage of complaints about poor consultation, noise, and light pollution.The Waltham Cross Datacenter (WXT), which was officially opened last year, sits on a 33-acre (133,546 m²) site north of the M25 motorway that encircles London. It is expected to provide up to 77 MW of IT capacity when full, but it is currently nowhere near this level, according to Google. Google's Waltham Cross datacenter in Hertfordshire SECNewgate Given the site is now operational, the event was intended to introduce the team managing what Google touts as the cloud and search giant's first UK-owned and operated facility. But in somewhat shambolic and often rowdy proceedings, it was clear that some residents were not happy with the datacenter on their doorstep, and many had misgivings about the effect it may have on their area. One complaint raised several times was that locals felt there had been poor communication about the project, and that they had not been sufficiently consulted about it before approval was granted for construction to go ahead.This was directed at representatives present from the local Broxbourne Borough Council as much as Google, with one resident claiming: "We haven't had the opportunity to object," and "if you'd listened to people, we wouldn't be here right now."The council and Google maintain that all proper procedures were followed. It is understood that a planning application for a datacenter on the land was filed as far back as 2018, but that was before Google acquired the land for £33 million ($44 million) in 2020. The final reserved-matters application was approved on November 30, 2023.However, one attendee at the meeting offered his opinion that "the council didn't maybe advertise the consultation process vigorously," adding: "I don't think anything was done effectively. If you're worki...