Slough Data Centre Petition: 285 Sign to Pause New Builds

A petition asking Slough Borough Council to stop approving new data centres has been signed by 285 people in its first four days. It runs on the council’s own website until 16 November 2026.

The petition asks the council “to pause the approval of new data centre developments until an independent assessment has been carried out into their cumulative impact on residents, infrastructure and the environment”. It singles out “Microsoft’s proposed data centre next to Langley Train Station”.

Two things in the council’s own records complicate that request. The council has already granted a blanket ten-year permission for data centres on the Slough Trading Estate. And the largest recent scheme was taken out of its hands and approved by a government minister in June.

What the petition argues

The organisers set out these concerns. They are the petitioners’ claims, not findings by the council or any regulator.

• Slough is the second largest data centre hub in the world, behind Northern Virginia in the United States
• pressure on the electricity grid and the water supply
• continuous noise from cooling equipment and backup generators
• the loss of strategic development land
• research suggesting clusters of data centres can raise nearby temperatures by as much as 9°C
• life expectancy in Slough that is already lower than the national average

“There has never been a comprehensive independent assessment of these reported impacts,” the petition says. It closes: “Slough should not become an experiment.”

The council has already zoned the trading estate until 2034

Slough adopted a Simplified Planning Zone covering the Slough Trading Estate on 12 November 2024. It runs for a decade, to 11 November 2034.

The council describes it as a tool that “allows specific development to be built without the need to apply for individual planning permissions”, provided a set of conditions is met. The development it covers includes datacentres, warehouses, research and development centres and ancillary uses.

That matters for the petition. On the trading estate, there is often no individual approval for the council to pause, because it granted permission in advance for the next ten years.

Manor Farm was decided over the council’s head

The other limit is that the council does not have the last word.

In December 2024 an application was made for a data centre and battery storage system at Manor Farm and land north of Wraysbury Reservoir, Poyle Road. The council did not determine it. The applicant, Manor Farm Propco Limited, appealed against that failure.

The appeal was recovered for the Secretary of State on 29 August 2025. A public inquiry sat on 14 to 17 and 21 to 24 October 2025. On 10 June 2026 the Minister of State for Housing and Planning, Matthew Pennycook MP, allowed the appeal on the Secretary of State’s behalf.

The scheme he approved includes:

• a data centre of roughly 36,368 square metres gross internal area
• a parapet height of 23 metres, with a maximum screen height of 30 metres
• a battery energy storage system with a 100 MW capacity
• backup generators, fuel storage, a substation and 86 car parking spaces

The decision letter also settles a number the council had disputed. The Secretary of State agreed with the inspector that unmet need for data centre capacity in the Slough Availability Zone is 1,259 MW, and that the council’s view that the trading estate would meet future needs “is not reliable”.

How much is already consented

The council publishes its own list of data centre consents, prepared as evidence for the Manor Farm inquiry. It records ten schemes, and states plainly that “this is not an exhaustive list of all data centres consented within the Borough”.

Among them:

• 225 Bath Road, approved 7 November 2018, and the adjacent site at Cippenham, approved 8 October 2019
• Langley Business Centre, Station Road, outline approved 29 January 2021: a data centre of up to 93,000 square metres gross on one plot, with up to 60 homes on the other
• Bay 9-13, Banbury Avenue on the trading estate, approved 20 May 2024
• 188-216 Bath Road, two separate data centres, with a resolution to grant from the planning committee pending a section 106 agreement
• Poyle Manor, Poyle Road, where an earlier appeal was allowed

The petition names Microsoft in connection with Langley. The council’s list records the Station Road consent but does not name an operator, and we could not confirm today which company is behind it. We are not going to attach a company name to a scheme on the strength of a petition.

The AkzoNobel site: the 1,000 homes question

The petition says the former AkzoNobel site “where outline planning permission had been secured for up to 1,000 homes, is now being developed as a hyperscale data centre”. The register is more specific than that, and worth reading carefully.

The outline permission for the Wexham Road site, reference P/00072/096, was approved on 19 November 2020. It covered a mixed use development: up to 1,000 homes and commercial floorspace which could include general industry, storage or a data centre.

What has actually come forward under it has been data centres:

• P/00072/108, the first phase of commercial floorspace, data centre use, approved 12 October 2021
• P/00072/139, the final phase, data centre use, approved 14 August 2024. The council’s committee papers name it “Building C Yondr Data Centre”
• P/00072/152, a fresh outline for up to 90,614 square metres of data centre floorspace on the same site, recorded as under consideration

So the homes were permitted in principle. The buildings going up are data centres.

What it means for you

If you want to sign, the petition is on the council’s website and closes on 16 November 2026. You have to register an account with the council’s democracy site first, which is free.

Be realistic about what a petition can reach. A pause on approvals would not touch schemes already consented, and on the trading estate the Simplified Planning Zone removes the need for many individual approvals until November 2034. Manor Farm shows that where the council does refuse or fail to decide, an applicant can appeal and the government can decide instead.

The point at which residents have most influence is the new local plan, which sets the policy the council and any inspector must work from, and consultations on individual applications while they are open. Live applications are listed on Slough planning news.

A second petition is also open. It asks the council to review parking enforcement at nine leisure centres, parks and community facilities, and it has 106 signatures. That one closes sooner, on 2 September 2026.

Sources

• Slough Borough Council ePetition, Pause New Data Centre Development in Slough for the petition text, the 17 August to 16 November 2026 dates and the signature count, checked 21 August 2026.
• Slough Borough Council ePetitions list for both live petitions and their totals.
• Slough Borough Council, Simplified Planning Zone for the 12 November 2024 adoption, the 11 November 2034 expiry and the development it permits without individual applications.
• Secretary of State decision letter and inspector’s report, Manor Farm, 10 June 2026 for the recovery date, the inquiry dates, the decision, the floorspace and height figures, the 100 MW battery system and the capacity figures.
• Slough Borough Council, Public Inquiry: Manor Farm for the application reference and the scheme description.
• Slough Borough Council, Appendix C.1, planning consents for data centres for the list of consents, their references, descriptions and decision dates, and for the note that the list is not exhaustive.

This page reports a live petition and the public planning record behind it. It does not take a position on whether the petition should succeed.