The UK government is facing scrutiny for failing to do its due diligence on the environmental impacts of hyperscale datacentres, after admitting its decision to overturn a denied planning permission request for a site in Iver should be quashed.

The site in question is the subject of a legal challenge raised by tech justice non-profit Foxglove in collaboration with environmental charity Global Action Plan, who claimed the government was wrong to grant planning permission for the project without conducting an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) first.

The project, known as the West London Technology Park (WLTP) development, is being overseen by developer Greystoke, which wants to transform the former landfill site (located within an area of green belt land) into a hyperscale datacentre.   

Buckinghamshire County Council, the local authority with responsibility for granting planning permission for the project, denied two earlier applications by Greystoke to build a datacentre there, with the first rejection of its plans occurring in September 2022.

In response, the company sought to challenge the first of these planning permission denials by filing an appeal with Lee Rowley, the then under-secretary of state for local government and building safety, who dismissed the case in October 2023.

Another planning application for the site was then submitted for a slightly larger datacentre development, totalling 72,000m² in size, in March 2024 before being rejected by local planning officials the following June.

In October 2024, confirmation was received that Greystoke’s appeal against Buckinghamshire County Council’s decision to block the build had been “recovered” by the newly installed Labour government, and outline planning permission for the project was granted on 9 July 2025.

As previously reported by Computer Weekly, both Buckinghamshire County Council and the government’s planning inspectorate stated that no EIA was needed for the project. This was based on the fact that assurances had been offered by Greystoke that the site itself would benefit from air-cooled servers that would use minimal amounts of water, and that the datacentre would not have an adverse impact on local electricity supplies.

This is a view Foxglove and Global Action Plan have vehemently contested in their legal challenge, which had its first court hearing on 22 January 2026. Ahead of that taking place, the government sent a legal letter to Foxglove and Global Action Plan dated 19 January 2026, stating that its decision to grant permission for the WLTP project contained a “serious logical error” and its decision should be “quashed”.

The letter, seen by Computer Weekly and shared by Foxglove on the day of its court hearing, states that it is being sent on behalf of the secretary of state for housing, community and local government, and confirms the government did originally conclude that the project was not an “EIA development”.

“As part of that exercise natural resources use was assessed…[and] that assessment relied on [an] Energy Statement and Sustainability Statement, which between them outlined a suite of mitigation measures,” the letter stated. “Not all of those mitigation measures, however, were secured by the grant of permission.

“Accordingly, the secretary of state accepts that in screening out EIA based on mitigation measures but then failing to secure those measures, there was a serious logical error…and the reasons given by the secretary of state for considering the development did not require an EIA were inadequate.”

On this basis, the letter concluded: “The secretary of state accepts that the claim is arguable and the permission [for the project] should be quashed.”

Despite this, Foxglove and Global Action Plan claim in a statement that Greystoke is sticking to its guns that the project should be allowed to proceed, having opted to participate in this week’s court action.

Computer Weekly contacted Greystoke for comment on this point, along with requesting a response to the news of the government’s admission that the planning permission for the build should be overturned. No response from Greystoke had been received at the time of publication.

Buckinghamshire County Council was also approached for a response, but no response was forthcoming at the time of publication from it either.

In a statement, Foxglove co-executive Rosa Curling said it shouldn’t take the threat of court action for the government to admit that its decision to “blindly accept” the environmental claims of big tech firms was “fundamentally wrong”.

“For too long, ministers have been putting the profits of Trump-supporting tech billionaires ahead of the interests of the British public. Nowhere has this been clearer than their willingness to force through massive datacentres against the wishes of the local community, without a thought for the catastrophic damage they will cause to our environment,” said Curling.

“We’re encouraged the government now appears to recognise that blindly accepting tech companies’ magical promises about the impact of their datacentres on our environment isn’t good enough. Instead, there need to be strict legal restrictions with teeth, and a mandatory Environmental Impact Assessment for each new data centre as a starting point.” 

Meanwhile, Global Action Plan CEO Sonja Graham described the government’s backtracking on the issue as embarrassing and avoidable. “This embarrassing climb-down could have been avoided had the government done its job and scrutinised big tech’s flimsy carbon commitments in the first place,” said Graham.

“Silicon Valley abandoned its green sheen the moment [artificial intelligence] AI datacentres started to proliferate, which makes it all the more remarkable our government swallowed the AI Kool-Aid without a second thought for the impacts on people and planet.” 

Foxglove and Global Action Plan launched their legal action in August 2025 with a crowdfunding appeal, which – in that time – has won the support of more than 900 individuals who have donated more than £22,500 in funding.

Graham continued: “People across the UK are increasingly concerned about datacentres’ proliferation and what it means for access to water and power. The government being asleep at the wheel like this will do nothing to reassure them.”

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