It’s a sun-kissed 26C in Slough, one in every of London’s extra well-known satellite tv for pc cities, and Europe’s largest information centre hub. Monolithic constructions, each purring with noise, rise imposingly over terraced housing and nook retailers. They’re tall, gray buildings, warehouse-like and nearly grand, encircled by electrical fencing and safety guards. As of 2026, there are 40 in and round Slough Buying and selling Property. Extra are on the way in which. On a world scale, the Berkshire city is second solely to Ashburn, Virginia, as a knowledge centre hub.
Slough’s services are used for every thing from cloud computing to monetary transactions and boring outdated company IT to generative AI. “Are they pumping out useful info, or nude pictures of children?” asks one resident, who asks to stay nameless.
Geography is without doubt one of the foremost causes for Slough’s inflow of data centres. Its place 20 miles west of London provides operators easy accessibility to the Metropolis and Canary Wharf, nevertheless it boasts extra space than wherever nearer.
Slough borough council’s planning paperwork particularly establish the mixture of proximity to London, fibre infrastructure and resilience, and out there land. The truth is, the city sits straight on high of the web fibre-optic cables that run throughout the Atlantic from the US, by Eire and the UK and on to mainland Europe. “Strategically, it’s one of the crucial vital areas on the earth,” James Tyler, UK managing director of knowledge centres large Equinix, instructed the BBC.
An aerial view of an Iron Mountain information centre in Slough
Getty Photographs
But to some extent, Slough’s newfound place as a haven for information centres has slipped underneath the radar. It’s nonetheless higher referred to as the backdrop to The Workplace, Ricky Gervais’s pioneering fax machine comedy, and because the topic of John Betjeman’s 1937 poem Slough, through which he invitations “pleasant bombs” to fall in town.
The poet was commenting on Slough’s position within the run-up to the Second World Struggle, when it grew to become a cramped, more and more industrial place. “It isn’t match for people now, there isn’t grass to graze a cow,” he wrote.
In the present day, Slough has 160,000 inhabitants. It’s a busy city, stuffed with grammar faculties (4) and residential to the Horlicks Quarter, the place the outdated drinks manufacturing unit was redeveloped into high-end housing, and a Nineteenth-century public park named after the astronomer William Herschel.
It’s on the Elizabeth line, has one of many youngest populations in England — about 28 per cent of residents are underneath 18 — and is recognised as one of the crucial ethnically various components of the nation.
Residents are preventing again
“We’ve got nearly 40 information centres and extra planning functions are being submitted,” she says exterior one of many centres. “We’re merely asking the council to conduct a cumulative evaluation of their affect. I like Slough — it has a lot occurring, it’s various and there’s an actual neighborhood right here. It might be a disgrace if that was misplaced.”
Banerjee, who was a analysis fellow at College Faculty London earlier than transferring to pharmaceutical large GSK, says she acts as a voice for residents, lots of whom “don’t have the time or sources to ask burning questions”.
She says: “We’re involved in regards to the ‘warmth island affect’, on noise air pollution and the potential of long-term well being points on residents, corresponding to pollution being pumped out into the air by diesel mills. These power-guzzling centres use quite a lot of water too. They usually’re being constructed on green-belt land.” John and Linda Willis, two former tv engineers, moved to the outskirts of Slough in 1982, seeing it as a quiet place superb for his or her commute into London.
“Is there actually nowhere else to construct these constructions, someplace slightly farther away from folks?”
John, Slough resident
They dwell close to to the place Microsoft is planning to construct a knowledge centre within the former Langley enterprise centre, a 17-acre web site near the Elizabeth line and Windsor Faculty. Session with residents is ongoing and the proposals have been introduced up at a current Slough borough council assembly on September 24. “Is there actually nowhere else to construct these constructions, someplace slightly farther away from folks?” asks John, wanting over his backyard fence, which backs onto the countryside.
“For a very long time, there have been constructing works taking place behind my dwelling. They’ve completed now and the geese have returned. I can hear the birds, the rustle of the grass. I don’t wish to hear the whir of a knowledge centre. And the place is all this vitality coming from to energy them? It appears to me like we’re constructing for the longer term, however killing the current. If we kill the current, we received’t have a future left. I despair for younger folks.”
A Microsoft spokesperson mentioned: “Microsoft is working carefully with native authorities and residents by an ongoing neighborhood session and we welcome their suggestions by our drop-in periods and web site.”
A spokeswoman for Slough borough council despatched the Normal a prolonged assertion addressing residents’ considerations, claiming neither electrical nor water provides can be affected by new information centres.
“The council is in fact aware of the potential environmental impacts of knowledge centres inside the borough, as we’re of all industries and developments, and should, and do, take into account them at nice size when proposals are offered to us,” she mentioned. “We completely assess proposals and search to mitigate and make sure the finest environmental (and wider) advantages related to these developments.
Alexey Fedorenko – inventory.adobe.com
“We’re additionally extremely conscious of the Authorities’s place which helps the numerous progress of this trade, having not too long ago made the choice to approve a hyperscale information centre within the east of the borough which we stay dissatisfied with.”
The “hyperscale” information centre in query was authorised in June. Developer Manor Farm Propco Restricted will have the ability to use a 20-acre inexperienced belt web site in Slough for the challenge, which incorporates battery energy storage and a generator. Planning minister Matthew Pennycook, who made the choice on behalf of then housing secretary Steve Reed, mentioned the necessity for improvement, an absence of appropriate various websites and “the wants of the market” have been important in giving the challenge the inexperienced gentle.
Banerjee, Willis and their fellow campaigners have a tough process forward. Within the web age and with AI booming, Slough seems to be the place a lot of our information will exist. All of the whereas, the Labour authorities, hungry for financial progress, plans to triple information centre output by 2030. There are already 500 in Britain, with one in 10 in Slough Buying and selling Property.
The Workplace, based mostly round a paper producer, couldn’t appear extra historic, even when it was launched solely 25 years in the past. Gervais mentioned extra not too long ago: “I’ll say this about AI: If it begins turning into a burden, swap it off… like we did Nan.”
