{"id":678697,"date":"2026-07-07T15:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T15:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/678697\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T15:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T15:11:08","slug":"curry-bagels-and-ai-londoners-fight-plan-for-huge-datacentre-in-brick-lane-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/678697\/","title":{"rendered":"Curry, bagels \u2026 and AI? Londoners fight plan for huge datacentre in Brick Lane | London"},"content":{"rendered":"

Campaigners in east London<\/a> are opposing plans for a datacentre in Brick Lane that they say will worsen the area\u2019s housing crisis and drive long-term residents away.<\/p>\n

The road, famed for its curry houses and 24-hour bagel shops, is the latest flashpoint in the rapid rollout of datacentres across the UK that aims to meet demand created by artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

The Brick Lane datacentre, proposed to cover 5,200 sq metres, would be used for automated \u201chigh-frequency trading\u201d in London\u2019s nearby financial district.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Moberly, a resident and member of the Save Brick Lane campaign, said the new centre on the site of the former Truman Brewery would bring no benefit to the area or residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a severe housing crisis here and this site should be used to build affordable \u2013 ideally council \u2013 houses. Instead we are talking about this datacentre, which will bring literally no benefit to anyone living here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A recent report<\/a> by the London assembly found the rapid expansion of datacentres, which require huge amounts of energy, was delaying urgently needed housing in the capital as there is not enough capacity on the electricity grid for both.<\/p>\n

Moberly said: \u201cIt is quite clear we can\u2019t have the housing we need and these datacentres \u2013 you have to make choices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jonathan Moberly looking at a plan of the datacentre. Photograph: David Levene\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

The planning documents submitted for the datacentre show it will be mainly used for so-called high-frequency trading, allowing a huge volume of financial transactions in the City of London to take place within a fraction of a second. The proposals show the datacentre\u2019s peak output would be 5.2MW, enough to power about 15,000 homes, according to campaigners.<\/p>\n

Moberly said: \u201cIn some cases the government might say \u2018oh you all want your Instagram feeds or TikTok so you need this\u2019 but that is not the case with this proposal. The value of putting one here is for high-frequency trading because of its proximity to the City, where milliseconds count.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposed centre would be on the site of the old Truman Brewery. Photograph: David Levene\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Campaigners are also concerned about noise pollution from the new site \u2013 a nearby datacentre has already been subject to complaints from residents for the persistent low-level hum that it emits, described as \u201clike a huge fridge\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tower Hamlets council rejected the proposals for the new Brick Lane centre last year. There was a public inquiry but Steve Reed, the housing secretary, called in the decision, meaning the government will now decide whether the development goes ahead. A government spokesperson said it would take the subsequent report from the public inquiry into account and that a decision would be made no later than 17 August.<\/p>\n

The Truman Bewery company, which is proposing the scheme, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Faysal Ahmed, a Tower Hamlets councillor for the area, said the community and council were united in opposing the plan. He said other parts of the borough, such as Canary Wharf, would be more suitable sites, arguing it \u201cdefies all logic to propose a datacentre on Brick Lane, in the middle of one of the most densely populated estates in the country\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWe have 31,000 people on our waiting list for social housing and this new datacentre will do nothing to help those families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahmed, who is a cabinet member on the council, said the proposed datacentre would worsen the housing crisis, drive up housing costs and push long-term residents out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lack of knowledge about datacentres among some in the local community but as people have understood more about it they have overwhelmingly opposed it as threatening everything that makes the historic area of Brick Lane and Banglatown so special,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Brick Lane is just one of scores of datacentres being planned across the UK. In February, Ofgem said about 140 proposed datacentre schemes were in the pipeline and could require 50GW of electricity<\/a> \u2013 5GW more than the country\u2019s current peak demand.<\/p>\n

Oliver Hayes, of the campaign group Global Action Plan, said: \u201cCommunities everywhere \u2013 from Tower Hamlets to Fife \u2013 are resisting datacentres that they fear will drive up bills and monopolise power and water. They feel that the only winners will be Silicon Valley billionaires, while people and the environment suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe UK government should follow the example of a growing number of global cities and declare a moratorium on new AI datacentres until ministers can produces a credible, needs-based plan for how many of these we need, where and what for.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Scottish government is considering a sweeping moratorium<\/a> on building new datacentres, the Guardian reported on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Campaigners in east London are opposing plans for a datacentre in Brick Lane that they say will worsen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-678697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}