Bikers, bug lovers and climate campaigners team up against a Google data center near London
Almost 55,000 people signed a petition against Google's Thurrock campus over rare bees, emissions and a lost racetrack. Only one of 1,000 public responses backed it.
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The coalition against Google's next UK data center includes a wildlife trust, a legal nonprofit and a motorcycle club. Joel Khalili reports for WIRED on the fight over Thurrock, about 15 miles east of London.
The alliance
Jamie Robins of conservation trust Buglife handed in a petition with nearly 55,000 signatures to Google's King's Cross headquarters, asking it to drop the plan. Buglife and local wildlife groups worry about an endangered plant, a rare bumblebee and other invertebrates. Nonprofit Foxglove says the campus could emit up to 570,000 tonnes a year, more than the UK's carbon budget can absorb. And the Thurrock Hammers motorcycle club wants to race on the site again, a disused stadium called Arena Essex. Its director, Mark Sexton, says the odd mix has helped get attention.
Roughly 1,000 members of the public wrote to planners about it, and just one was in favor, though Thurrock Council says many came from outside the area.
Google's answer
Google, which bought the site through a subsidiary in 2023 and applied to build last year, says the objections misunderstand its plans. It promises a net gain in biodiversity by keeping habitat and relocating endangered plants, offsets through financing new renewable energy with a goal of carbon neutrality by 2030, and notes the racetrack has been unused for years. "We want to be good neighbors," said Google's Adam Elman.
The pattern
The UK government wants these projects to capture AI investment and reduce dependence on foreign compute. But resistance is spreading: the same week, protesters climbed a crane at a Microsoft site in Amsterdam, and Foxglove recently won a legal challenge forcing the UK government to withdraw a planning decision. Robins says new local campaigns pop up every week.
Even the activists aren't optimistic about this one; one called it a chip off a massive ice block. But each fight raises the cost and time of building, and that adds up.
Scoreboard update: Humans +1. An unlikely coalition makes Google fight for every acre of its London data center.
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