Information & Updates

Why are we against the Xlinks data centre and BESS?

WE reject the proposal on a number of grounds, including but not limited to:

It will desecrate 850 acres of quality agricultural land in the heart of the UNESCO North Devon Biosphere levelling hills and valleys.

Twice the size of the largest Ai data centre so far approved in the UK built on a brownfield site.

It does not need to go there. It can go anywhere. It can go in a disused quarry or airfield.

Using previous data centres as a reliable guide the estimate from Xlinks that it will create up to 1,200 jobs is misleading and figures closer to 150 are more likely.

The buildings will be 40m high (a 13 storey building or 130 feet  high) and will be clearly visible from Dartmoor and beyond dominating the whole of the Devon area.

The 2700 containers filled with 16,000,000 Lithium Ferrous Phosphate cells each and everyone capable of a thermal runaway and poisoning the land produce 69db of noise both audible and inaudible 24 hours a day 7 days a week without end. This noise will be unpleasant for many miles from the site.

The megalithic data centre building will raise the ground and air temperatures changing the natural balance of the land and region.

This is predominantly Grade 3b agricultural land - prime quality pasture for livestock. Humans and animals cannot feed on mega bytes.

More details will be made available once our teams have compiled their reports for our legal objections once the planning applications are released.

What are WE doing about it?

Two days after we learned about the Xlinks plans of our land to a data centre and BESS we met and started forming a steering committee for a campaign.

Already we have:

Our direct action as a committee in a planning meeting resulted in an application for a BESS being refused. We have written formally to Torridge District Council, to our MP Sir Geoffrey Cox, to the Secretary of State for Energy Security, to the Minister for Planning, to Historic England, to Natural England, to the Environment Agency, to Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service, to the Woodland Trust, to CPRE Devon, and to Clinton Devon Estates. Every one of those letters makes the legal and factual case for why these applications must be challenged.

We have already secured one significant early win. The pressure applied by this community, including the petition, the public meeting, and our formal correspondence to Ministers, contributed to Xlinks extending the consultation period and postponing the public information days until after the summer. The planning applications will not now be submitted until next year. That gives us time. We will use every day of it.

We are also encouraging everyone who thinks this is a terrible thing to do to our precious landscape to take part. This is a national issue. It requires nation scale thinking and a factual, logical response in order to win any court room aruguments. We are guided by our hearts but facts will speak for us.

Community Meetings

We will be staging regular meeting in and around Great Torrington to keep the community updated abnd infornmed on progress. Keep an eye on our events page for details.

Other local campaigns in the Great Torrington area.

There are other campaigns active in the Great Torrington area. Their is a petition via  change.org which offers little to no staturtory help and is of little use to the challege we have. Their is also a Gofundme account. This is for their own use which is said to be for promotion materials only. These funds are not collected for the legal challenge we have so are, once again, of little use for our legal challenge we face.