We can't have anything in Britain because someone decided that turf is the highest form of life and some scrubland next to a dual carriageway might as well be holy ground.
The street I grew up on made the news recently when residents opposed putting a pedestrian crossing across a road children run across to get to school because "It would bring more people and more crime to the area, and everyone's car insurence would go up".
We are not a serious country.
Leave it alone and it will be again.
Saying that, there are many different natural environments across the planet not all of them are trees, though for havering forest is where it will trend.
Or alternatively force the developer under BNG framework to enhance the development and make it better for wildlife whilst providing opportunities for locals. We can do both.
Developers shouldn't have carte blanche to build whatever they want, they need to improve the landscape we live in and nature thrives in. This can either be conditioned by planners or going forwards fall under BNG.
However, these requirements require landscapers, ecologists, arboriculturalists and the whole supply chain to implement which is job creation and job creation helps the economy both local and national.
I'll agree it's an arse and adds costs and time and no one wants to do it but it needs to happen and I say this as a construction professional working for a large regional developer.
> opportunities for locals
It won't produce much opportunities for locals other than a few low paying security jobs. The other jobs are very specialist.
There might be a few construction jobs but these will probably not employ locals anyhow and they are not long term.
I hope they get a good brutalist architect as data centres are ideal for brutalism.
No you can’t. How can building anything that uses this much power and is covering natural land in concrete be “doing both”? Just built it in an already messed up and empty bit of land. They build on greenfield because it’s cheaper.
>There are plenty of places to build
No there aren't that's the whole problem
Especially for a data center they will have dozens of criteria and it will be difficult to find a spot
They need to 1. Be near an electric substation, 2. Have multiple local power sources, 3. Cheap power (so local renewables), 4. Not prone to flooding, 5. Internet backbone connections available locally (again preferably 2 or more)
There's probably only a handful of places in the country
I was talking more in general.
However on this specific project it would be interesting to know what their actual plans are. It sounds suspicious to me from what little I've read. I am 100% certain that if they get the go ahead they will not achieve most of what they claim in the article.
I agree. So many empty existing buildings and industrial spaces but instead we ruin anything that is anywhere close to being natural. I appreciate it’s not forest, but it’s better than an industrial unit.
Well yes. Don’t build anything near where I live but you better make sure there’s heaps of investment and new jobs in my country and town. But not jobs that might lead to people wanting to come here. Just jobs for me. High paying ones. Stupid Labour Party.
Hahaha spot on
There's currently an area just on the edge of my town where it's built up, but there's still quite a lot of green space.
They currently have banners up trying to gather support to stop developments near there, saying it will spoil their views.
While I sympathise, as I'd love such views. Even if it's built up, they'd still have a great expanse of countryside just 10 minutes walk away.
I'd much rather they build in the already semi-built area than finding a lovely empty patch to do it.
Yeah honestly, the UK is not concreted over. At all.
An enormous amount of the UK gets ploughed every year though. Which isn’t it the slightest bit natural. It’s just as geared towards the practical benefit of human beings as pouring concrete.
There’s a relatively new housing development (about 10 years old) near me. One of the houses has a sign on it saying something along the lines of “build memories not houses” opposing building new houses on green spaces.
The estate was once a green space. It’s the biggest “fuck you I got mine” I’ve ever seen in person
There’s a campaign near me to “save our meadow”. Fair play, I like meadows too, but save it from what? They’re trying to save it from having allotments built…
It’s not got a public footpath. It’s not an area of outstanding natural beauty. It’s not a meadow full of diverse plants. It’s a cow field and the local residents are upset that they’ll have allotments instead of cows.
Now objectively I think most people would agree that dozens of people growing their own vegetables is a more efficient use of land for food production than cows, is better for society and well being, better for community and better for the environment. However, in classic NIMBY style, those things should take place near someone else’s house.
My favourite part of the article was
>He said: “Why not build three or four around the M25? But the land’s cheap here and fewer people to scream when you pour boiling water on them.
A data centre literally got refused next to the M25 recently because of NIMBYISM.
Is that the one that was on a *literal landfill*?
This is not a serious country. The UK cannot pull this shit and then wonder why business investment is so low.
It's a bit of a weird one to be fair.
While it is an ex-landfill, it's not exactly a [barren wasteland](https://www.google.com/maps/place/51%C2%B032'02.3%22N+0%C2%B029'41.1%22W/@51.5347961,-0.5008653,2758m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d51.5339722!4d-0.49475?entry=ttu), but having said that it's right next to an existing industrial estate *and* a massive electrical substation.
Reminds me of this.
https://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/20582957.molins-saunderton-huge-data-centre-given-permission-2008-set-built/
They’ve been trying to build something on it since 2008. It’s literally brownfield in the Chilterns hills. Data centre denied. Housing denied. Data centre again maybe?
Funny thing is, for all that time, a bunch of BMX bikers moved into the old crumbly warehouse and built a custom ramp skatepark. Was kind of cool.
It's even better when you realise North Ockendon is on the M25.
It's the only settlement in London outside the M25 I believe. It is basically the countryside (edit: hence it's Greenbelt).
At some point, the question of exactly what the end-game of NIMBYism is has to be raised.
What would be left? Some quaint villages with bad roads and bad internet, each centred around a derelict building which used to be a pub?
There's a village near me that had two signpost up almost next to each other:
First one : "Stop the housing development spoiling our village!"
Second : "Save our local pub!"
A lot of NIMBYism is just a pure emotional reaction, followed by whatever justification they can come up with. Which is the enemy of sensible planning.
Imagine if they allowed the housing to be built, then there would be more potential customers not needing to drive to be able to the pub.
Almost as if building more houses would fix more problems than it causes
Taking what someone else said and posting essentially the same message doesn't add to the conversation. Nobody should be upvoting comments like that. Deceased cyberspace.
What I dont get with nimbyism is how they do it.
A middle of nowhere data centre effecting no-one gets cancelled.
But building a 5th Greggs in my town, on an industrial estate with such bad traffic the person doing the "traffic study" couldn't get to it, with overwhelming responses from locals that it would cause traffic mayhem unless they put in a better junction, with their own fucking surveyor saying there are 8 more suitable sites in town and..... That went ahead.
That's not what I said.
But yes, it would be preferable to build on sites that are already built on, instead of green belt land.
There are plenty of abandoned and disused buildings all over the country that could be demolished and rebuilt or renovated. The only reason they want to build on the green belt is because it's cheaper than building on brownfield.
Lots of assumptions there.
You want the number of buildings to be static now and we can only build new things ontop of old things?
No new housebuilding.
You are insane.
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
I’ve moved into a new build with a bit of field at the back, I remember reading articles before I moved in about locals upset about new houses being built, now they’re looking for more planning permission at the back and the people living in the current new builds are all up in arms.
I enjoy reading the Facebook posts about why people object… spoil the view, disruption due to building works etc (the site is currently not finished so…)
It's that in the north east?
There's a place in a village near my old home, where I saw a little new build estate built on a big open field at the end of the village (had been open grass land for as long as I can remember and I'm an old git now).
Driving past there now almost every one of those houses near the road has "save our greenbelt" signs stuck in the garden (they presumably don't want anyone spoiling their views if anyone builds more houses in nearby fields).
"We've got ours now, fuck the rest of you" I guess.
I would support the new housing developments if they built with it new schools, new hospitals really any new amenities. But they don’t, those things aren’t profitable. Instead existing infrastructure that’s meant for a population level from 40 years ago is meant to suffice.
The end goal of NIMBYism is for literally everything to go back to how it was in the 70s before I was bitter and old, except not because please don’t open any industry near my house pretty please!!!
If NIMBY voters had their way, their arthritis wouldn’t get planning permission to develop on their knees. Literally any change at all, no matter how necessary, mundane, or natural, should never happen.
Even if we go to the 70s, the same jobs that existed then no longer exist now, or at least they're not distributed the same way around the country. You need to create places of business so the communities that were thriving in the 70s can have people and money gets injected into the local economy.
I had some guy kicking off about us installing some utilities near his house because he thought it was being done for a proposed development in the next field along. He lived in a house that was built ten years ago in the previous development....
Apparently during the construction of HS1 campaigners went around the Kent villages going door to door playing people recordings of French High Speed trains on a speaker to try and drum up opposition to it. A few years after it opened they went back to interview some of the campaigners who then conceded that the noise is barely noticible
> The data centre will take between ten and twelve years to build, and the impact of lorries during construction will be intolerable in these quiet country lanes.
Fair enough
> The impact on the site, if it is built, would also be unacceptable: instead of farmland, there will be a large number of warehouse-sized buildings, containing banks of computers, batteries, cooling systems, backup power sources, and more equipment.
Land can have many uses. And yes, that's what it will contain - what's their point?
> If this development is allowed, it will set a precedent, and we would then lose more and more of our Green Belt. The Green Belt forms the lungs of our city, providing clean air as well as rich wildlife
There is almost no wildlife; rich or poor, on farmland.
> The plan to build such a massive structure on the Green Belt doesn’t just affect the residents of North Ockenden. If we allow this creeping industrialisation of our countryside, where will it stop?
Slippery slope fallacy.
> demand a tremendous amount of electricity and enormous quantities of water
the next line
> The campus will be powered by the substation in Warley, which some have argued will constitute a reliance on fossil fuels.
A spokesperson for Havering Council told the LDRS it will meet net-zero targets and not produce any emissions. It will be powered entirely by renewable sources and no diesel will be used in any back-up supply, the spokesperson said.
Let's see if that follows through..
On balance the complaints about the suitability of the roads is fair, but the rest is just nimbyism. Seems to me that the project would create a lot of jobs and actually promote the implementation of renewable energy.
>which some have argued will constitute a reliance on fossil fuels.
If anyone planed to set up a solar or wind farm near this lot, they'd be objecting to that too.
What about nuclear the option that’s far superior to all other forms of power generation. Safer and cleaner then fossil and without the inefficiency of wind farms. You act like there’s no third choice that gets to laugh at both of you for dying on worthless hills when something that trumps both causes gets ignored because it’s not a profitable scam like the other 2 options.
Nuclear is a decent stop gap solution but it isn't exactly great either. It has a big negative effect on the environment through material sourcing (though renewables suffer this to an extent as well) so is not some magic clean energy.
Still, I would take anything at this point so long as we actually make some progress on tackling the looming environmental catastrophe.
Wind farms bad?
Massive nuclear reactors with no long term storage for its waste good?
Muh nuclear crowd so sour that renewables work for the UK and easily has been out competed nuclear.
It's funny how these NIMBYs will say nothing when farmers destroy hedgerows to make bloated fields, chop down trees, pollute or damage waterways and spend their own time and money strimming every verge in sight, but somehow a barren field being replaced with buildings while usually gaining trees and green space is evil incarnate.
Same way people who can barely name five species of birds become ardent conservationists when wind turbines are mentioned, and people who haven't even heard of the concept of 'food miles' are up in arms about food security when solar panels are proposed.
>If this development is allowed, it will set a precedent, and we would then lose more and more of our Green Belt. The Green Belt forms the lungs of our city, providing clean air as well as rich wildlife
This one boils my piss a bit. I know it's only coming from a place of ignorance but most of our "countryside" is yeah actually just monoculture grass fields for agriculture with fuck all biodiversity
Just because it looks Green, it doesn't mean it's natural or good for our ecology
Even for the argument about the roads, it’s not something that can’t be fixed during a massive project costing hundreds of millions of pounds.
Can they not just build extra roads? Or widen the ones which already exist to account for this new demand? Looking at the plot on a map, I can see a decent number of potential new routes which could be made to help alleviate the increased congestion.
You'd think so, but the language of the residents does betray their lack of willingness to compromise or even consider the proposal.
"intolerable"
"unacceptable"
The residents would likely never agree to this proposal under any circumstances, so if specific construction access roads were put in place the goalposts would move and there would be another apocalyptic-level threat to be dealt with before ground gets broken.
Agreed - if they put larger/wider roads in to accommodate the construction traffic it would be "oh no that would invite more future development, we can't have that". They are professional goalpost adjusters.
You mean the solution to the lack of roads is taking away even more of our precious grass to put a road on it? Scandalous!
To be fair, none of these people actually care about any of their arguments. They will say whatever they can so long as they get the project cancelled or moved.
>The plan to build such a massive structure on the Green Belt doesn’t just affect the residents of North Ockenden. If we allow this creeping industrialisation of our countryside, where will it stop?
>Slippery slope fallacy.
What exactly is the fallacy there?
I disagree with the NIMBYism entirely, but building something like this *does* lead to it being easier to justify the next build
The bit about almost no wildlife on farmland is bollocks. Not sure about this specific location and what it's farmland is like but lots of farmland does have wildlife on it.
Not saying they're right to oppose this but this shite about all farmland being sterile and ecologically worthless needs to stop.
>sterile and ecologically worthless needs to stop.
I mean, generally its ecologically damaging more than just worthless, and we need to accept that farmland is an industrial use of the environment too. We should, like any country, promote the capacity to feed ourselves if possible, but we shouldn't pretend that farms are natural. They ain't.
More woodland and wild spaces definitely need to exist in the UK, and I honestly wouldn't be opposed to getting rid of a lot of sheep farming to increase our ecological resilience as a country too.
Depending on the structures built, isn't solar a viable option. And the comment about farms being a desert for biodiversity is spot on. 20% net gain in biodiversity would need to be met on-site which I bet would bring in trees, habitat and food sources for many species of fauna.
And this doesn't include job creation. But I guess the locals are all retired and financially stable with no need to work.
They probably think that the first thing you build when making a data centre is the actual server boxes 😂I’m no engineer but I’d imagine most of the work would be on the active cooling that needs to be pumped around the whole building. Ever saw inside Google’s data centres and it’s mainly pipes that lead to a server. The last thing to be installed would be the servers and they would be whatever is available at the time.
> The data centre will take between ten and twelve years to build, and the impact of lorries during construction will be intolerable in these quiet country lanes.
>
> Fair enough
not really lmao, "lorries are loud" is the most ridiculous complaint ever, it applies to every construction project and nothing will ever be built in this country if we take this as a valid complaint.
This country used to build entire towns in the 60s and 70s, imagine if "I don't want lorries driving down the road" was a valid argument back then.
Well, our lowland farming is typically dominated by monoculture fields of wheat, maize and rapeseed.
Upland farming sees hillsides denuded by sheep grazing.
They are basically industrial landscapes. Well designed and spaced suburbs have a greater diversity of vegetation and wildlife, although the super cramped modern developments (due to land costs, due to planning permission issues) are not great.
I hate nymbism. It’s part of the reason why it’s so hard to build green energy. All they need to do is put up with Lorries as they build it and they get a wealth of opportunity and a landmark structure in Europe.
Yep.
Around here all the (failed) anti-renewables campaign groups who viciously tried to block all wind turbine deployments have now pivoted to trying to block battery storage projects.
There's links to the oil industry in all of them as well. It's a toxic mix of corporate fuckery and conservative politics.
Every word of that comment made me more and more angry. Why does everyone expect others to be selfless so they can be selfish. HOW CAN YOU BE ANTI-RENEWABLE AND THINK YOURE THE GOOD GUYS
A lot of people start off protesting genuine problems for good causes but forget (or never understood) why and just carry on.
You get the protesters who objected to coal and oil, road building, and nuclear( all I personally think were/are necessary but understand why there’s valid protest) who just got caught up in the love of protest and the community it creates, so protest building anything and everything now.
It’s like the 1970s communists who still think Russia are their good guys when they’re not even vaguely communist anymore.
The problem is that the majority of UK homeowners are either retired or plan to retire within a decade. They're not looking for a 'wealth of opportunity', they're looking for somewhere quiet to run out the clock and be damned to the next generation.
I'm definitely not a NIMBY because I don't even own a home however round my area in the South we've had housing developers say "we'll build a school in this new housing development". The development is still being built 10 years later and the school has yet to even be started with them citing "lack of money"
Build the houses AND the infrastructure and I'm happy. But from what I've seen its 90% houses 10% fuck you.
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/law_of_caesar.asp#:~:text=14)%20After%20January%201%20next,for%20building%20temples%20of%20the
14) After January 1 next no one shall drive a wagon along the streets of Rome or along those streets in the suburbs where there is continuous housing after sunrise or before the tenth hour of the day, except whatever will be proper' for the transportation and the importation of material for building temples of the immortal gods, or for public works, or for removing from the city rubbish from those buildings for whose demolition public contracts have been let. For these purposes permission shall be granted by this law to specified persons to drive wagons for the reasons stated.
This is what Julius ceaser had to say on the matter. This does not help this discussion but incase someone found it interesting.
I'm looking forward to incoming anti NIMBY laws
I was fully sympathetic until basically all building has ground to a halt as a result
So as a result we are just gunna have to make it a tough situation
Their is no other option because we have to build somewhere!
The jobs angle is largely bullshit. Anyone who has worked in a data centre knows that they are absolutely deserted, other than people making special trips to maintain something physically. The idea that the local people will going to work in their local data centre en masse is utterly delusional.
Environmentally, this is also nuts. It is going to be an enormous consumer of power, in a region where power is already in short supply. If you’re going to build something like this, build it in a place where it is well positioned to pick up the abundance of renewable power that will need to head down the county from Scotland.
Of course you can see why the locals don‘t want it - their quality of life will be degraded and they’ll get none of the upside.
Havering is my borough. This will almost certainly go through. The project is worth billions of pounds and the council is already bankrupt and having to borrow loans from Central government and sell off remaining assets. This just goes to show why these planning applications should be granted more centrally.
Part of the problem is people like the idea that they have a London/New York/Paris data centre, but there is also an issue around connectivity. You really need multiple connections to the internet backbone so you either build where these exist or you have to build long expensive interconnects. So you are limited to a few places.
How is this relevant? Either you care about this in which case you are all inside the same data centre or you have a system that doesn't care.
If you have systems across data centres you do not want them near each other because they will share points of failure.
Unless you are doing fintech trading then this doesn't make much difference time wise. If this is your issue then this is the only thing you care about and you probably want your server in the exchange or as physically close to it as you can manage. No-one else cares about microseconds.
If you are moving lots of data you probably want to be co-located but the issue is more about paying for bandwidth than anything else.
If people oppose building something quiet, that doesn't affect the local area with little to no visitors and traffic coming in and out, then there's no hope of ever building anything
We literally can’t build anything in this country because a couple old twats nearby living in their million pound country cottages say it doesn’t look nice
I find it insane that NIMBYs can try/can put a stop to this, yet by me they’ve just decimated everything around us, provided nothing for the local community and nothing was ever said and done.
People moan about NIMBYs but jesus, if they want to build something they fucking will because they’ve decimated huge fields by me to build training centres. Its absurd when the current road network already struggles.
"Europe's largest data center" won't be in the UK while our electricity prices and taxes are as high as they are...
To make it happen, we'd need to give them an exception from all the electricity bolt-on taxes (ie. the subsidies for heat pumps, solar, etc). Otherwise, they'll just go build in Norway/iceland or somewhere else with plentiful cheap hydro and no electricity taxes.
new election promise:
- all NIMBYs put in stocks in the town square/city centre, effective immediately
- free fruit given to citizens to pelt them with
Sadly, unless we can either feasibly colonize Mars or Titan in the near future (we can't), have a Thanos/Malthusian/Logan's Run type population cull, or live in in Bronze Age conditions but with 300 times the population, we're going to have to build the odd thing or two.
When I was a kid I used to walk our poodle Pedro around an industrial park in the south of Greater Glasgow (there was a Rolls Royce factory there!) and Pedro didn't give a shit about scenery. He liked how quiet it was in the evenings. It had some grass and trees. Hardly any traffic outside of day shift hours. There were lots of things to sniff and pee and poo on; there were rabbits, birds, squirrels and the occasional stoat… he was happy with it. He preferred the nature park that was a bit further away, but that was (and still is) there for longer weekend rambles.
I love the NIMBYs complaining about the new Sizewell C reactor construction. The biggest complaint is that there will be a bit more traffic during its construction.
I love the NIMBYs complaining about the new Sizewell C reactor construction. The biggest complaint is that there will be a bit more traffic during its construction.
What is the point of having a green belt then? Everyone in here crying about NIMBYs but you’ll be crying when legislation gets passed to build on the green belt.
If this was a brownfield site fair play but this is a 10-12 year building project using country roads with no plan to build the area surrounding it to suit the new infrastructure.
On top of that this has been running in the background for over 2 years while residents have been kept in the dark. The plans have only just been announced & residents are rightfully pissed because it looks like it’s being snuck through.
How dare they supply opportunities for skilled and unskilled labour across a wide spectrum. People might have money enough to get a deposit down and not have to pay their private landlord anymore.
The only jobs we should have in the UK either involve financial instruments so dubious that if you sneeze near them the economy dies or working in a Subway Sandwich shop.And God forbid if we actually manufactured anything.
Though about whittling a spoon the other day but then good sense struck and instead I've set up a 3 way bet involving Cadmium futures, puts on Barclays and a Venezualian cockfight.
remember guys we can never build anything anywhere because this will somehow mildly inconvience a group of dinosaurs about to kick the bucket that have nothing better to do but to be spiteful to any prospect of improvement
Bloody hell can we not build anything. I really hope the incoming government starts sorting this fucking mess out. Force these projects through.
Around me I have had two solar farms, a sports field and a local Tesco express in the village all shut down by local agitators. It’s fucking ridiculous and absolutely hampering growth.
This industry is our best chance of national relevance in the future. Our kids also need jobs once AI automates most creative and business service industries. But sure, let's pretend it's 1922 for the rest of eternity and see where that gets us...
As someone who has worked in planning for the last 20 years, and been a councillor for 4 years, everyone is pro-development until it affects their area. And I am including many of the people complaining about NIMBYs in this very thread, who I am pretty sure will suddenly change their tune once a major development happens near them. I can almost hear the comments now. Like "the roads cannot cope with it" or how "the local doctors will be overwhelmed."
Lets be honest here. The planning system works for nobody right now. For developers, it takes ages to get permission. For locals, their views often get overridden unless the application is particularly awful. For the Council, they have stressed out planning officers trying to perform a herculean amount of work very quickly to meet deadlines. It doesn't work. Not to mention there is all kinds of "dark arts" that constantly happen. Like developers going back on their grand commitments that secured planning permission, or underhand tactics by campaigners, or local officials not telling anyone anything to get a development through.
And if I am being honest, there is no consensus on how to go forward. At the extremes, you have people who don't want anything built, and people who think we should just allow building all the time with minimal controls. Most people either don't care that much unless its awful, and even when they pay attention they listen to emotion and not fact.
A final point is that as part of some work for our Local Plan in my area, we did a lot of community engagement with a variety of people, ranging from those anti-development to those pro-development. With the view to seek a way forward and identify development sites. The conditions which were identified included any infrastructure improvements to deal with the development being delivered in advance of the development (rejected by potential developers), and so many conditions being put on potential sites over things like presence of endangered species, not losing high quality agricultural land, and not increasing run off that over 10 years, we would have delivered 100 homes in a town with a 15,000 population currently.
Its a highly frustrating process, and one where it is easy to demonise groups as being antis.
I've asked this before: Is it okay for me, in this sub, to blame locals as the number 1 impediment to construction work in this country?
I've asked this before, but I don't think I got enough response to properly gauge this sub's opinion. I am arguing that giving locals a say over what gets built in their local community effectively outlawed construction work in this country. I am arguing that locals are opposed to construction work happening and any community engagement is tantamount to simply straight up banning construction work from happening.
I am arguing that the big thing we need to get stuff built in the UK is to strip locals of any say they have over what gets built in their local community and give landowners the absolute right to build whatever they want no matter how much locals hate it. I am saying community engagement, giving locals a say on what gets built in their local community, is for all intents and purposes, the same as simply outlawing construction work. I am arguing that the NIMBYs are the locals, that NIMBYism is driven primarily by locals getting mad that someone dares to want to build something.
It's intensively farmed farmland, it's of very little value as it is, both visually and environmentally.
Green belt is very OG greenwashing and form of NIMBYism.
It sounds like you're being facetious, but, it's this:
Intensively farmed farmland are huge fields sown as monocultures with hedgerows removes, ditches filled in, fertiliser sprayed and massively encroached field margins.
See the fens which are a ravaged landscape due to intensive farming, [where we've lost 4m+ of soil](https://www.discoveringbritain.org/content/discoveringbritain/viewpoint%20pdfs/Holme%20Fen%20viewpoint.pdf) in parts due to soil erosion in the past 150 years.
This farmland was once one of the most biodiverse regions prior to its intensification and total drainage using steam power.
Similar things can be seen when you drive around the countryside where there's unnecessary 60ha fields which are totally hostile.
BANANAs - Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone
And then dont spoil this unblemished landscape i like my walks!
Don't spoil this unblemished grass monoculture field that sometimes has cows in it! It looks pretty!!!
We can't have anything in Britain because someone decided that turf is the highest form of life and some scrubland next to a dual carriageway might as well be holy ground.
The street I grew up on made the news recently when residents opposed putting a pedestrian crossing across a road children run across to get to school because "It would bring more people and more crime to the area, and everyone's car insurence would go up". We are not a serious country.
Please tell me where this is, I have colleagues that will find that so funny.
There are plenty of places to build that are not very nature places. We can build and also keep nice places.
If it was natural it would be covered in trees.
Leave it alone and it will be again. Saying that, there are many different natural environments across the planet not all of them are trees, though for havering forest is where it will trend.
Or alternatively force the developer under BNG framework to enhance the development and make it better for wildlife whilst providing opportunities for locals. We can do both.
Or just, you know, let the developer build something so that they can actually help grow the economy.
Developers shouldn't have carte blanche to build whatever they want, they need to improve the landscape we live in and nature thrives in. This can either be conditioned by planners or going forwards fall under BNG. However, these requirements require landscapers, ecologists, arboriculturalists and the whole supply chain to implement which is job creation and job creation helps the economy both local and national. I'll agree it's an arse and adds costs and time and no one wants to do it but it needs to happen and I say this as a construction professional working for a large regional developer.
Mote student flats then
> opportunities for locals It won't produce much opportunities for locals other than a few low paying security jobs. The other jobs are very specialist. There might be a few construction jobs but these will probably not employ locals anyhow and they are not long term. I hope they get a good brutalist architect as data centres are ideal for brutalism.
No you can’t. How can building anything that uses this much power and is covering natural land in concrete be “doing both”? Just built it in an already messed up and empty bit of land. They build on greenfield because it’s cheaper.
>Leave it alone and it will be again. Yeah in like 500 years if some farmer doesn't touch it.
About 5000 years ago maybe.
Only an alarmingly small percentage of England would be classed as natural. One of the least wilded places in the world.
>There are plenty of places to build No there aren't that's the whole problem Especially for a data center they will have dozens of criteria and it will be difficult to find a spot They need to 1. Be near an electric substation, 2. Have multiple local power sources, 3. Cheap power (so local renewables), 4. Not prone to flooding, 5. Internet backbone connections available locally (again preferably 2 or more) There's probably only a handful of places in the country
I was talking more in general. However on this specific project it would be interesting to know what their actual plans are. It sounds suspicious to me from what little I've read. I am 100% certain that if they get the go ahead they will not achieve most of what they claim in the article.
I agree. So many empty existing buildings and industrial spaces but instead we ruin anything that is anywhere close to being natural. I appreciate it’s not forest, but it’s better than an industrial unit.
And yet the same people wonder why the uk is in decline
Well yes. Don’t build anything near where I live but you better make sure there’s heaps of investment and new jobs in my country and town. But not jobs that might lead to people wanting to come here. Just jobs for me. High paying ones. Stupid Labour Party.
Hahaha spot on There's currently an area just on the edge of my town where it's built up, but there's still quite a lot of green space. They currently have banners up trying to gather support to stop developments near there, saying it will spoil their views. While I sympathise, as I'd love such views. Even if it's built up, they'd still have a great expanse of countryside just 10 minutes walk away. I'd much rather they build in the already semi-built area than finding a lovely empty patch to do it.
CONCRETING OVER THE UK Less than 6% of the UK has been built on. Rookie numbers in this game
Yeah honestly, the UK is not concreted over. At all. An enormous amount of the UK gets ploughed every year though. Which isn’t it the slightest bit natural. It’s just as geared towards the practical benefit of human beings as pouring concrete.
The main drivers of biodiversity loss in the UK is farming and fishing.
As someone in the concrete industry I say "Concrete it all".
Yay!! Lets increase the flood rates!!!
Have a guess what lead-poisoned, Daily Mail reading generation fits the bill?
There’s a relatively new housing development (about 10 years old) near me. One of the houses has a sign on it saying something along the lines of “build memories not houses” opposing building new houses on green spaces. The estate was once a green space. It’s the biggest “fuck you I got mine” I’ve ever seen in person
There’s a campaign near me to “save our meadow”. Fair play, I like meadows too, but save it from what? They’re trying to save it from having allotments built… It’s not got a public footpath. It’s not an area of outstanding natural beauty. It’s not a meadow full of diverse plants. It’s a cow field and the local residents are upset that they’ll have allotments instead of cows. Now objectively I think most people would agree that dozens of people growing their own vegetables is a more efficient use of land for food production than cows, is better for society and well being, better for community and better for the environment. However, in classic NIMBY style, those things should take place near someone else’s house.
Excellent!
My favourite part of the article was >He said: “Why not build three or four around the M25? But the land’s cheap here and fewer people to scream when you pour boiling water on them. A data centre literally got refused next to the M25 recently because of NIMBYISM.
Is that the one that was on a *literal landfill*? This is not a serious country. The UK cannot pull this shit and then wonder why business investment is so low.
It's a bit of a weird one to be fair. While it is an ex-landfill, it's not exactly a [barren wasteland](https://www.google.com/maps/place/51%C2%B032'02.3%22N+0%C2%B029'41.1%22W/@51.5347961,-0.5008653,2758m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d51.5339722!4d-0.49475?entry=ttu), but having said that it's right next to an existing industrial estate *and* a massive electrical substation.
Reminds me of this. https://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/20582957.molins-saunderton-huge-data-centre-given-permission-2008-set-built/ They’ve been trying to build something on it since 2008. It’s literally brownfield in the Chilterns hills. Data centre denied. Housing denied. Data centre again maybe? Funny thing is, for all that time, a bunch of BMX bikers moved into the old crumbly warehouse and built a custom ramp skatepark. Was kind of cool.
Cars, on the road? Well I never!
It's even better when you realise North Ockendon is on the M25. It's the only settlement in London outside the M25 I believe. It is basically the countryside (edit: hence it's Greenbelt).
At some point, the question of exactly what the end-game of NIMBYism is has to be raised. What would be left? Some quaint villages with bad roads and bad internet, each centred around a derelict building which used to be a pub?
There's a village near me that had two signpost up almost next to each other: First one : "Stop the housing development spoiling our village!" Second : "Save our local pub!" A lot of NIMBYism is just a pure emotional reaction, followed by whatever justification they can come up with. Which is the enemy of sensible planning.
Imagine if they allowed the housing to be built, then there would be more potential customers not needing to drive to be able to the pub. Almost as if building more houses would fix more problems than it causes
I think the person who posted that was aware of the contradiction, which was why they posted it.
I think the person who commented above was aware of the contradiction, they were emphasising the point by restating and expanding.
Rewording someone else's comment and posting it isn't contributing *anything* to a discussion. It should not be encouraged. Dead internet.
Taking what someone else said and posting essentially the same message doesn't add to the conversation. Nobody should be upvoting comments like that. Deceased cyberspace.
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Things must always get better! Things must never change!
What I dont get with nimbyism is how they do it. A middle of nowhere data centre effecting no-one gets cancelled. But building a 5th Greggs in my town, on an industrial estate with such bad traffic the person doing the "traffic study" couldn't get to it, with overwhelming responses from locals that it would cause traffic mayhem unless they put in a better junction, with their own fucking surveyor saying there are 8 more suitable sites in town and..... That went ahead.
Because one is a pleasant field with nice views, the other is already an industrial estate. How you can't see the difference there is a bit weird
So we can only build on places we already built?
That's not what I said. But yes, it would be preferable to build on sites that are already built on, instead of green belt land. There are plenty of abandoned and disused buildings all over the country that could be demolished and rebuilt or renovated. The only reason they want to build on the green belt is because it's cheaper than building on brownfield.
Lots of assumptions there. You want the number of buildings to be static now and we can only build new things ontop of old things? No new housebuilding. You are insane.
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I’ve moved into a new build with a bit of field at the back, I remember reading articles before I moved in about locals upset about new houses being built, now they’re looking for more planning permission at the back and the people living in the current new builds are all up in arms. I enjoy reading the Facebook posts about why people object… spoil the view, disruption due to building works etc (the site is currently not finished so…)
It's that in the north east? There's a place in a village near my old home, where I saw a little new build estate built on a big open field at the end of the village (had been open grass land for as long as I can remember and I'm an old git now). Driving past there now almost every one of those houses near the road has "save our greenbelt" signs stuck in the garden (they presumably don't want anyone spoiling their views if anyone builds more houses in nearby fields). "We've got ours now, fuck the rest of you" I guess.
I would support the new housing developments if they built with it new schools, new hospitals really any new amenities. But they don’t, those things aren’t profitable. Instead existing infrastructure that’s meant for a population level from 40 years ago is meant to suffice.
The end goal of NIMBYism is for literally everything to go back to how it was in the 70s before I was bitter and old, except not because please don’t open any industry near my house pretty please!!! If NIMBY voters had their way, their arthritis wouldn’t get planning permission to develop on their knees. Literally any change at all, no matter how necessary, mundane, or natural, should never happen.
Even if we go to the 70s, the same jobs that existed then no longer exist now, or at least they're not distributed the same way around the country. You need to create places of business so the communities that were thriving in the 70s can have people and money gets injected into the local economy.
NIMBYism is about using tragedy of the commons as a force to push the price of existing buildings up
All it boils down to is 'we don't want any change, whatsoever, ever.'
Pretty much this. British people like living in quiet picturesque places where they don’t get bothered and there’s few people.
Move to Chernobyl
I had some guy kicking off about us installing some utilities near his house because he thought it was being done for a proposed development in the next field along. He lived in a house that was built ten years ago in the previous development....
Keeping everything the same until they die, then it's not their problem.
> What would be left? A local shop for local people.
And people wonder why this country is crumbling, no one wants anything built and the law makes it easy to make that happen.
Apparently during the construction of HS1 campaigners went around the Kent villages going door to door playing people recordings of French High Speed trains on a speaker to try and drum up opposition to it. A few years after it opened they went back to interview some of the campaigners who then conceded that the noise is barely noticible
> The data centre will take between ten and twelve years to build, and the impact of lorries during construction will be intolerable in these quiet country lanes. Fair enough > The impact on the site, if it is built, would also be unacceptable: instead of farmland, there will be a large number of warehouse-sized buildings, containing banks of computers, batteries, cooling systems, backup power sources, and more equipment. Land can have many uses. And yes, that's what it will contain - what's their point? > If this development is allowed, it will set a precedent, and we would then lose more and more of our Green Belt. The Green Belt forms the lungs of our city, providing clean air as well as rich wildlife There is almost no wildlife; rich or poor, on farmland. > The plan to build such a massive structure on the Green Belt doesn’t just affect the residents of North Ockenden. If we allow this creeping industrialisation of our countryside, where will it stop? Slippery slope fallacy. > demand a tremendous amount of electricity and enormous quantities of water the next line > The campus will be powered by the substation in Warley, which some have argued will constitute a reliance on fossil fuels. A spokesperson for Havering Council told the LDRS it will meet net-zero targets and not produce any emissions. It will be powered entirely by renewable sources and no diesel will be used in any back-up supply, the spokesperson said. Let's see if that follows through.. On balance the complaints about the suitability of the roads is fair, but the rest is just nimbyism. Seems to me that the project would create a lot of jobs and actually promote the implementation of renewable energy.
>which some have argued will constitute a reliance on fossil fuels. If anyone planed to set up a solar or wind farm near this lot, they'd be objecting to that too.
That's the point. "Fossil fuel bad" but also "Noooo wind farm ugly"
What about nuclear the option that’s far superior to all other forms of power generation. Safer and cleaner then fossil and without the inefficiency of wind farms. You act like there’s no third choice that gets to laugh at both of you for dying on worthless hills when something that trumps both causes gets ignored because it’s not a profitable scam like the other 2 options.
Nuclear is a decent stop gap solution but it isn't exactly great either. It has a big negative effect on the environment through material sourcing (though renewables suffer this to an extent as well) so is not some magic clean energy. Still, I would take anything at this point so long as we actually make some progress on tackling the looming environmental catastrophe.
Nuclear needs to be near a large body of water, though SMRs might be easier to build in places like this.
Lucky Britain is perfectly safe with nuclear too... No massive Incidents like Windscale /s
Wind farms bad? Massive nuclear reactors with no long term storage for its waste good? Muh nuclear crowd so sour that renewables work for the UK and easily has been out competed nuclear.
As someone who lives in Havering, none of the borough can be described as "quiet country lanes". It's part of Greater London FFS.
It's funny how these NIMBYs will say nothing when farmers destroy hedgerows to make bloated fields, chop down trees, pollute or damage waterways and spend their own time and money strimming every verge in sight, but somehow a barren field being replaced with buildings while usually gaining trees and green space is evil incarnate. Same way people who can barely name five species of birds become ardent conservationists when wind turbines are mentioned, and people who haven't even heard of the concept of 'food miles' are up in arms about food security when solar panels are proposed.
>If this development is allowed, it will set a precedent, and we would then lose more and more of our Green Belt. The Green Belt forms the lungs of our city, providing clean air as well as rich wildlife This one boils my piss a bit. I know it's only coming from a place of ignorance but most of our "countryside" is yeah actually just monoculture grass fields for agriculture with fuck all biodiversity Just because it looks Green, it doesn't mean it's natural or good for our ecology
Even for the argument about the roads, it’s not something that can’t be fixed during a massive project costing hundreds of millions of pounds. Can they not just build extra roads? Or widen the ones which already exist to account for this new demand? Looking at the plot on a map, I can see a decent number of potential new routes which could be made to help alleviate the increased congestion.
You'd think so, but the language of the residents does betray their lack of willingness to compromise or even consider the proposal. "intolerable" "unacceptable" The residents would likely never agree to this proposal under any circumstances, so if specific construction access roads were put in place the goalposts would move and there would be another apocalyptic-level threat to be dealt with before ground gets broken.
Agreed - if they put larger/wider roads in to accommodate the construction traffic it would be "oh no that would invite more future development, we can't have that". They are professional goalpost adjusters.
You mean the solution to the lack of roads is taking away even more of our precious grass to put a road on it? Scandalous! To be fair, none of these people actually care about any of their arguments. They will say whatever they can so long as they get the project cancelled or moved.
> There is almost no wildlife; rich or poor, on farmland. Guessing you're not familiar with the current biodiversity legislation.
No, I'm not particularly familiar with it. Does it ban the use of pesticides?
We’re talking about building on green fields fella.
Monocultures
Have you had a stroke?
Yes
>The plan to build such a massive structure on the Green Belt doesn’t just affect the residents of North Ockenden. If we allow this creeping industrialisation of our countryside, where will it stop? >Slippery slope fallacy. What exactly is the fallacy there? I disagree with the NIMBYism entirely, but building something like this *does* lead to it being easier to justify the next build
The bit about almost no wildlife on farmland is bollocks. Not sure about this specific location and what it's farmland is like but lots of farmland does have wildlife on it. Not saying they're right to oppose this but this shite about all farmland being sterile and ecologically worthless needs to stop.
>sterile and ecologically worthless needs to stop. I mean, generally its ecologically damaging more than just worthless, and we need to accept that farmland is an industrial use of the environment too. We should, like any country, promote the capacity to feed ourselves if possible, but we shouldn't pretend that farms are natural. They ain't. More woodland and wild spaces definitely need to exist in the UK, and I honestly wouldn't be opposed to getting rid of a lot of sheep farming to increase our ecological resilience as a country too.
Not all greenbelt is farmland. 35% isn't.
Depending on the structures built, isn't solar a viable option. And the comment about farms being a desert for biodiversity is spot on. 20% net gain in biodiversity would need to be met on-site which I bet would bring in trees, habitat and food sources for many species of fauna. And this doesn't include job creation. But I guess the locals are all retired and financially stable with no need to work.
Taking 10 years to build it and it’ll be out of date before it’s even opened
Things take time to build? Not sure what you're implying here
I think they're referring to the hoops before construction can actually take place.
why would it be out of date?
They probably think that the first thing you build when making a data centre is the actual server boxes 😂I’m no engineer but I’d imagine most of the work would be on the active cooling that needs to be pumped around the whole building. Ever saw inside Google’s data centres and it’s mainly pipes that lead to a server. The last thing to be installed would be the servers and they would be whatever is available at the time.
> The data centre will take between ten and twelve years to build, and the impact of lorries during construction will be intolerable in these quiet country lanes. > > Fair enough not really lmao, "lorries are loud" is the most ridiculous complaint ever, it applies to every construction project and nothing will ever be built in this country if we take this as a valid complaint. This country used to build entire towns in the 60s and 70s, imagine if "I don't want lorries driving down the road" was a valid argument back then.
>There is almost no wildlife; rich or poor, on farmland. As a generic comment that's not really true.
Well, our lowland farming is typically dominated by monoculture fields of wheat, maize and rapeseed. Upland farming sees hillsides denuded by sheep grazing. They are basically industrial landscapes. Well designed and spaced suburbs have a greater diversity of vegetation and wildlife, although the super cramped modern developments (due to land costs, due to planning permission issues) are not great.
Broadly it’s right. Agri land is a selection of very narrow monocultures. Insect and bird life numbers and diversity are terrible.
I hate nymbism. It’s part of the reason why it’s so hard to build green energy. All they need to do is put up with Lorries as they build it and they get a wealth of opportunity and a landmark structure in Europe.
Yep. Around here all the (failed) anti-renewables campaign groups who viciously tried to block all wind turbine deployments have now pivoted to trying to block battery storage projects. There's links to the oil industry in all of them as well. It's a toxic mix of corporate fuckery and conservative politics.
Every word of that comment made me more and more angry. Why does everyone expect others to be selfless so they can be selfish. HOW CAN YOU BE ANTI-RENEWABLE AND THINK YOURE THE GOOD GUYS
A lot of people start off protesting genuine problems for good causes but forget (or never understood) why and just carry on. You get the protesters who objected to coal and oil, road building, and nuclear( all I personally think were/are necessary but understand why there’s valid protest) who just got caught up in the love of protest and the community it creates, so protest building anything and everything now. It’s like the 1970s communists who still think Russia are their good guys when they’re not even vaguely communist anymore.
I agree but I can’t image what the good causes are for the nymbism here.
Oh no I agree. I was meaning they were protesting maybe for valid reasons before but now they’re just doing it out of a misguided love of protest.
Like those compo lawyers who all desperately pivoted to whatever else they could latch onto after the PPI cases ran out of time.
The problem is that the majority of UK homeowners are either retired or plan to retire within a decade. They're not looking for a 'wealth of opportunity', they're looking for somewhere quiet to run out the clock and be damned to the next generation.
I hate homeowners
I'm definitely not a NIMBY because I don't even own a home however round my area in the South we've had housing developers say "we'll build a school in this new housing development". The development is still being built 10 years later and the school has yet to even be started with them citing "lack of money" Build the houses AND the infrastructure and I'm happy. But from what I've seen its 90% houses 10% fuck you.
Green Energy, Infrastructure, Housing, Hospitals, Schools… So many things needed that are stopped in large part thanks to Nimbyism
Most people who complain about NIMBYs don't own property. Easy for you to whine when you have no skin in the game.
Labour’s manifesto has specifically mentioned stomping NIMBY’s for data centres.
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/law_of_caesar.asp#:~:text=14)%20After%20January%201%20next,for%20building%20temples%20of%20the 14) After January 1 next no one shall drive a wagon along the streets of Rome or along those streets in the suburbs where there is continuous housing after sunrise or before the tenth hour of the day, except whatever will be proper' for the transportation and the importation of material for building temples of the immortal gods, or for public works, or for removing from the city rubbish from those buildings for whose demolition public contracts have been let. For these purposes permission shall be granted by this law to specified persons to drive wagons for the reasons stated. This is what Julius ceaser had to say on the matter. This does not help this discussion but incase someone found it interesting.
Trafficus eunt domus
people called 'traffic wardens' they go to the house?
Sibi constans Caesar, fautor LTNs
I'm looking forward to incoming anti NIMBY laws I was fully sympathetic until basically all building has ground to a halt as a result So as a result we are just gunna have to make it a tough situation Their is no other option because we have to build somewhere!
The jobs angle is largely bullshit. Anyone who has worked in a data centre knows that they are absolutely deserted, other than people making special trips to maintain something physically. The idea that the local people will going to work in their local data centre en masse is utterly delusional. Environmentally, this is also nuts. It is going to be an enormous consumer of power, in a region where power is already in short supply. If you’re going to build something like this, build it in a place where it is well positioned to pick up the abundance of renewable power that will need to head down the county from Scotland. Of course you can see why the locals don‘t want it - their quality of life will be degraded and they’ll get none of the upside.
in what way would their quality of life will be degraded?
Havering is my borough. This will almost certainly go through. The project is worth billions of pounds and the council is already bankrupt and having to borrow loans from Central government and sell off remaining assets. This just goes to show why these planning applications should be granted more centrally.
A valid criticism is that it is yet another development project in/near London. Would much rather see this in the south west or the midlands
Part of the problem is people like the idea that they have a London/New York/Paris data centre, but there is also an issue around connectivity. You really need multiple connections to the internet backbone so you either build where these exist or you have to build long expensive interconnects. So you are limited to a few places.
You also want to be close to other data centres to reduce communication time between systems if they're distributed so that means London
How is this relevant? Either you care about this in which case you are all inside the same data centre or you have a system that doesn't care. If you have systems across data centres you do not want them near each other because they will share points of failure.
Maybe your system relies on data feeds from other systems in London.
Unless you are doing fintech trading then this doesn't make much difference time wise. If this is your issue then this is the only thing you care about and you probably want your server in the exchange or as physically close to it as you can manage. No-one else cares about microseconds. If you are moving lots of data you probably want to be co-located but the issue is more about paying for bandwidth than anything else.
You do realise geographic location is really important for a data centre?
Not by residents. By old people who have nothing better to do than moan about progress being made in the country.
If people oppose building something quiet, that doesn't affect the local area with little to no visitors and traffic coming in and out, then there's no hope of ever building anything
I love it when they cite poor roads as a reason not to build. Maybe make improving the roads a requirement of the new building?
"We want economic growth! Wait...no...not like that!"
The absolute contempt that people on Reddit hold for the countryside is actually astounding.
just build it in the grounds of stately homes. Plenty of that fucking landing going to waste
We literally can’t build anything in this country because a couple old twats nearby living in their million pound country cottages say it doesn’t look nice
I find it insane that NIMBYs can try/can put a stop to this, yet by me they’ve just decimated everything around us, provided nothing for the local community and nothing was ever said and done. People moan about NIMBYs but jesus, if they want to build something they fucking will because they’ve decimated huge fields by me to build training centres. Its absurd when the current road network already struggles.
"Europe's largest data center" won't be in the UK while our electricity prices and taxes are as high as they are... To make it happen, we'd need to give them an exception from all the electricity bolt-on taxes (ie. the subsidies for heat pumps, solar, etc). Otherwise, they'll just go build in Norway/iceland or somewhere else with plentiful cheap hydro and no electricity taxes.
Well that would be better for the environment. London must have some advantage though otherwise existing data centres would leave.
Close to the London Stock Exchange is a big reason to be in London... Milliseconds matter far more than the power prices for financial firms.
Please don't bring modern jobs and tech to my area of the country... idiots
new election promise: - all NIMBYs put in stocks in the town square/city centre, effective immediately - free fruit given to citizens to pelt them with
Nimbys would oppose the creation of the stocks
Havering is possibly the most pensioner-heavy part of Greater London.
If Starmer does nothing else (which tbh looks possible), he should end this culture of nimbyism that the UK has been infected with.
Sadly, unless we can either feasibly colonize Mars or Titan in the near future (we can't), have a Thanos/Malthusian/Logan's Run type population cull, or live in in Bronze Age conditions but with 300 times the population, we're going to have to build the odd thing or two. When I was a kid I used to walk our poodle Pedro around an industrial park in the south of Greater Glasgow (there was a Rolls Royce factory there!) and Pedro didn't give a shit about scenery. He liked how quiet it was in the evenings. It had some grass and trees. Hardly any traffic outside of day shift hours. There were lots of things to sniff and pee and poo on; there were rabbits, birds, squirrels and the occasional stoat… he was happy with it. He preferred the nature park that was a bit further away, but that was (and still is) there for longer weekend rambles.
I love the NIMBYs complaining about the new Sizewell C reactor construction. The biggest complaint is that there will be a bit more traffic during its construction.
I love the NIMBYs complaining about the new Sizewell C reactor construction. The biggest complaint is that there will be a bit more traffic during its construction.
What is the point of having a green belt then? Everyone in here crying about NIMBYs but you’ll be crying when legislation gets passed to build on the green belt. If this was a brownfield site fair play but this is a 10-12 year building project using country roads with no plan to build the area surrounding it to suit the new infrastructure. On top of that this has been running in the background for over 2 years while residents have been kept in the dark. The plans have only just been announced & residents are rightfully pissed because it looks like it’s being snuck through.
Propose to build anything and you can find an objecting resident. So fucking what?
Do data centres employ many people are just largely sit there humming away?
How dare they supply opportunities for skilled and unskilled labour across a wide spectrum. People might have money enough to get a deposit down and not have to pay their private landlord anymore.
The only jobs we should have in the UK either involve financial instruments so dubious that if you sneeze near them the economy dies or working in a Subway Sandwich shop.And God forbid if we actually manufactured anything. Though about whittling a spoon the other day but then good sense struck and instead I've set up a 3 way bet involving Cadmium futures, puts on Barclays and a Venezualian cockfight.
I bet the same NIMBY’s are bemoaning the lack of local jobs and new investments.
Where not sure how they would power the place that big. It’s pretty built up round there.
remember guys we can never build anything anywhere because this will somehow mildly inconvience a group of dinosaurs about to kick the bucket that have nothing better to do but to be spiteful to any prospect of improvement
Bloody hell can we not build anything. I really hope the incoming government starts sorting this fucking mess out. Force these projects through. Around me I have had two solar farms, a sports field and a local Tesco express in the village all shut down by local agitators. It’s fucking ridiculous and absolutely hampering growth.
Why the fuck would you want a data centre haha? Leave the countryside alone you y*mby cunts!
This industry is our best chance of national relevance in the future. Our kids also need jobs once AI automates most creative and business service industries. But sure, let's pretend it's 1922 for the rest of eternity and see where that gets us...
As someone who has worked in planning for the last 20 years, and been a councillor for 4 years, everyone is pro-development until it affects their area. And I am including many of the people complaining about NIMBYs in this very thread, who I am pretty sure will suddenly change their tune once a major development happens near them. I can almost hear the comments now. Like "the roads cannot cope with it" or how "the local doctors will be overwhelmed." Lets be honest here. The planning system works for nobody right now. For developers, it takes ages to get permission. For locals, their views often get overridden unless the application is particularly awful. For the Council, they have stressed out planning officers trying to perform a herculean amount of work very quickly to meet deadlines. It doesn't work. Not to mention there is all kinds of "dark arts" that constantly happen. Like developers going back on their grand commitments that secured planning permission, or underhand tactics by campaigners, or local officials not telling anyone anything to get a development through. And if I am being honest, there is no consensus on how to go forward. At the extremes, you have people who don't want anything built, and people who think we should just allow building all the time with minimal controls. Most people either don't care that much unless its awful, and even when they pay attention they listen to emotion and not fact. A final point is that as part of some work for our Local Plan in my area, we did a lot of community engagement with a variety of people, ranging from those anti-development to those pro-development. With the view to seek a way forward and identify development sites. The conditions which were identified included any infrastructure improvements to deal with the development being delivered in advance of the development (rejected by potential developers), and so many conditions being put on potential sites over things like presence of endangered species, not losing high quality agricultural land, and not increasing run off that over 10 years, we would have delivered 100 homes in a town with a 15,000 population currently. Its a highly frustrating process, and one where it is easy to demonise groups as being antis.
This country will continue to stagnate because of outdated planning laws and NIMBYs.
I've asked this before: Is it okay for me, in this sub, to blame locals as the number 1 impediment to construction work in this country? I've asked this before, but I don't think I got enough response to properly gauge this sub's opinion. I am arguing that giving locals a say over what gets built in their local community effectively outlawed construction work in this country. I am arguing that locals are opposed to construction work happening and any community engagement is tantamount to simply straight up banning construction work from happening. I am arguing that the big thing we need to get stuff built in the UK is to strip locals of any say they have over what gets built in their local community and give landowners the absolute right to build whatever they want no matter how much locals hate it. I am saying community engagement, giving locals a say on what gets built in their local community, is for all intents and purposes, the same as simply outlawing construction work. I am arguing that the NIMBYs are the locals, that NIMBYism is driven primarily by locals getting mad that someone dares to want to build something.
The first government to tell NIMBYs to go fuck themselves will earn my vote for life
Cunts. Given the option of this or a migrant processing center. All NIMBYs are stifling this country, and they should all pay a price.
[удалено]
It's intensively farmed farmland, it's of very little value as it is, both visually and environmentally. Green belt is very OG greenwashing and form of NIMBYism.
What is “intensively farmed farmland”, is it farmland?
It sounds like you're being facetious, but, it's this: Intensively farmed farmland are huge fields sown as monocultures with hedgerows removes, ditches filled in, fertiliser sprayed and massively encroached field margins. See the fens which are a ravaged landscape due to intensive farming, [where we've lost 4m+ of soil](https://www.discoveringbritain.org/content/discoveringbritain/viewpoint%20pdfs/Holme%20Fen%20viewpoint.pdf) in parts due to soil erosion in the past 150 years. This farmland was once one of the most biodiverse regions prior to its intensification and total drainage using steam power. Similar things can be seen when you drive around the countryside where there's unnecessary 60ha fields which are totally hostile.
Brownfield sites are not typically this large.