The residents of tranquil North Ockendon are fighting the destruction of 200 hectares of historic fenland

At least once a week, the locals of leafy North Ockendon visit Hainault London Golf Club, a family-run venue with stunning views of pristine fens.

One of them is Gary, a concerned resident who did not want to share his last name. He gestures through the panoramic windows to the landscape outside. “All of this will soon be a data centre,” he says.

Once built, East Havering data centre will be the largest in Europe at an expected cost of more than £15bn – nearly twice the bill of the 2012 London Olympics.

The site will cover 200 hectares of fenland in total. The land has already been bought by developers Digital Reef and approved by Havering Council, who have promised thousands of jobs, a new 113-hectare Ecology Park and a boost in capacity for AI use and cloud storage to support the local and wider UK economy.

But residents of North Ockendon, the only inhabited area of Greater London outside the M25, are growing increasingly disillusioned with the plans.

The Hainault club owner, who wanted to remain anonymous, has worked there since it was built in the 1980s. He says the new data centre would ruin business. 

“It’s going to affect the views,” he says. “It will affect people wanting to come in and play golf and possibly get married here. You only have to look at the plans – 21-metre high warehouse-type buildings that Tesco would use in their storage facilities. They’re massive.”

Danny Leach owns a farm nestled on the edge of the planned data centre. His dirt track, which runs beyond the farm into the fields, will be flanked by warehouses barely 100 metres from his front door.

Last year, Leach found developers on his land, scoping out the site and laying gravel without permission. After he pestered the council, they left. 

“They set up that site there on top of some badger sets and paved part of it over,” he says. “When we came down they said, ‘oh no, there’s no badgers’. But we’ve got a video of the badgers – there’s cubs in there.”

Leach was also sceptical of the developer’s noise survey, which claimed the existing background noise around his farm was 45 decibels – nearly double what his own test recorded – which he believes will be used to justify the high levels of noise a new data centre will produce.

“The centre’s noise will decimate my house and my quality of life, because it’s so quiet here on the farm,” he says. “Who’s going to want to buy a house that noisy?” 

Jonathan Stockdale is CEO of studioNWA, an architecture firm that specialises in data centres. He struggles to see the benefits of the East Havering campus for locals: “I’m not sure of the true benefit other than to some landowner or developer.”

More than £60bn has been invested in data centres in the past three years, spurred on by the current Labour government who have loosened the rules around where the sites can be built, including on previously-restricted “green-belt” land and in built-up urban areas.

According to Stockdale, this land was mostly disused plots on the edge of motorways, or decaying urban buildings where a data centre could be used to heat nearby apartments.

“I’m not sure of the true benefit other than to some landowner or developer”

More than £60bn has been invested in data centres in the past three years, spurred

But he explains that government support means data centres are getting built in unconventional spots, such as tranquil North Ockendon.

In some cases, he warns developers are simply trying to “get permission to build on the site and then sell the land” – a move worth millions that would have little value to residents.

Back at the farm, Danny Leach is blunt about what is coming for North Ockendon. “It’s all a negative,” he says. “There’s no other benefit for me.”

A Havering Borough spokesperson for the Local Planning Authority says a public consultation on the project was carried out earlier this year, adding: “We are currently reviewing the comments received and would like to thank those who responded for taking the time to convey their views.” 

Digital Reef did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.

Featured Image: North Ockendon Nature. Credit: Tom Layton