North Devon Residents Challenge Xlinks’ £13.8bn AI Campus Over Early Council Support

Protesters have confronted Torridge District Council over a proposed AI campus in north Devon. Their objections go beyond the size of Xlinks’ project: council officials expressed support in principle before residents could examine the plans.

Xlinks proposes a £13.8bn development near Great Torrington: a 1.5-gigawatt AI data centre and a 1.8-gigawatt battery-storage system. The roughly 344-hectare site lies in a Unesco-designated biosphere reserve. Five planned buildings would stand between 50 and 130 feet tall.

A petition calling for a pause on data-centre and battery-storage plans outside designated AI growth zones has drawn 30,000 signatures nationally, according to The Guardian. Local campaigners cite farmland, water use, noise, air pollution and battery fire risks. These are concerns about the proposal, not established effects of a completed facility.

Support before scrutiny

Freedom-of-information requests revealed closed discussions between Xlinks and council officials, followed by a council letter of in-principle support. The letter came before public consultation or an environmental statement. Emily Clark of the Devon Datacentre and BESS action group said the exchanges suggested some officers treated the project as a foregone conclusion.

Before the public announcement

1. March 2025Closed discussions

   Xlinks and council officials were in closed discussions by March 2025.

2. April 2025In-principle support

   The council issued its letter of in-principle support.

3. Summer 2026Public announcement

   Xlinks announced the proposal to the public.

The council says confidential pre-application discussions are standard practice. It describes the letter as guidance on whether a project might be acceptable under planning rules, not approval. Council chair Doug Bushby said any eventual application would be handled under the same rules as other applications.

The footprint and the water question

A site plan obtained through information requests shows two buildings each measuring 335 by 267 metres, with a ground footprint of about nine hectares apiece. Xlinks says only about a third of the site would be developed; most of the rest would be open to the public or used to create wildlife habitat. The proposed battery system would contain 1,720 units.

Water use is a pointed concern while north Devon remains under a hosepipe ban. An information-request answer estimated consumption could reach approximately 2.9 billion litres a year under extreme heat and drought. Xlinks says that estimate came from a superseded design. Its revised approach would recirculate cooling water and rely mainly on rainwater to top it up, the company says.

Xlinks projects 600 to 1,200 jobs and says an environmental assessment is under way. A public consultation originally planned for July was postponed until later in 2026, according to the council; a formal planning application had not yet been received. Xlinks says it will release its revised water design during consultation and in the application.