We don't need a Warrington data centre
The Issue
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Warrington Borough Council is supporting the creation of an AI data centre being built by The Dante FS Groups in place of the Unilever soap factory. Allowing this to go ahead will be detrimental to the environment and us, the people of Warrington. AI data centres have caused immense damage to the lives of millions already, and we will be next if we do not act.
We are Isabella Higham (19 years old) and Georgia Fewster (18 years old), and we are young adults in Warrington. We have seen the growth of generative AI, and we admit, we were initially generative AI users ourselves, but that soon changed when we began to read up on the damage that the data centres cause. We hope to use this petition as a way of creating a campaign to both stop the production of this data centre and enlighten more people on the harm that AI data centres can cause, to humans (including you!) and to the earth.
Join the discussion -Our Discord Server
SO, what are the facts?
As we know, the Dante FS Group is set to build an AI data centre next to Bank Quay railway station. We really would like to get our voices out there, hoping to bring awareness to more residents of Warrington as well as attempting to contribute to our future as young people.
Working with a community of people who live around Warrington, we have started a campaign to do just that, and have begun with a research paper that I would like to summarise for you.
Some of the key points we would like to mention and perhaps even get clarity on will be- energy consumption, the job market as well as some uncertainties in the planning application.
Energy -
Studies from 2024 show that an ordinary data centre supporting Meta used roughly 18TWh in energy. Comparing this to the beginning of AI data centres in 2014 from the USA, they were already using 60TWh, 3x more than Meta. Reports from the same source do also show that in 2023, AI data centres were using 176TWh of energy, and that was three years ago, and AI data centres are continuously growing in use, size and number. Along with this, there is a really interesting statement highlighting this continuous growth, due to the speed in which these centres are being built, the broader energy system would require much higher lead times and high upfront investment, potentially exposing an uneasiness when it comes to improvements in AI uptake and energy sector “bottlenecks”. Electricity demand for AI data centres is growing fast globally, and it is estimated that simply a sole focus on just electricity generation will not be enough.
London is a prime example of this struggle for energy. 34x bigger than Warrington with a land area of 1646km², London had to delay plans to build housing near an AI data centre (similar to Warrington’s plans of building new housing). London came to this decision of delay due to the fact that the national security grid could not handle the mass amounts of energy consumption that the centre was taking up, especially alongside the consumption needs of residents. If this is the case with London, how could Warrington, with a land area of 48km² be expected to handle this kind of energy consumption better than London?
Referring back to the mention of Warrington’s housing plans, wanting to build 4,500 new homes nearby to the Unilever's Factory space, we feel as though the housing and data centre could severely contradict each other, with homes ending up as a sour investment, placed next to a large AI data centre, essentially competing for energy.
Electricity bills have already been raised for Warrington residents as recently as this month, how can we be so sure that they won’t be raised again?
The same article states that a city like Cambridge (slightly smaller than Warrington at 33km² and an estimated population of 140,937) consumes around 80MW of energy. If Cambridge consumes that amount of power, it is realistic to assume that Warrington’s population consumes around 80-100MW of energy. If an AI data centre is expected to consume 500MW upon start-up, greatly exceeding the whole of Warrington's intake, how can we be sure that we can even provide enough energy for a project of this size and ambition? How can we be sure that we can provide enough energy for an ai data centre and housing?
We, and many others, have raised concerns for the population of Warrington, with the plans of building 816 houses per year, as the Warrington Local Plan reads, wouldn’t it be a better investment for all to look into a potential new hospital, to help with the rising number of residents? To perhaps release some of the strain that is so strong on our Warrington Hospital.
Jobs - One of the main arguments that are for the building of this AI data centre is the “positive” effect that it can have on the job market. However, we’d like to raise some concerns about that. The progression of AI is forever speeding up, and because of this, humans are now falling behind. Trends of AI bots replacing humans is now extremely apparent, and we can only imagine that the danger of losing our jobs to AI grows as its advancements become harder to track. Due to this alone, we feel as though there is a huge contradiction- claiming to directly bring more jobs to the table while also supporting something that is indirectly beginning to eat up the job market, adding to a much larger scale of issues in the job market, while attempting to solve the issues for employment in Warrington. In one article, Goldman Sachs is quoted to say that with the pure trajectory of AI, it is set to overtake nearly 300 million full-time jobs, potentially replacing a quarter of the work place in the US and Europe.
Our second concern is directly to do with the actual amount of jobs that will be created for the public, primarily in the long term. Quoted from a Facebook comment from Graham Gowland, "You're completely right about the low headcount on site—that is a well-known industry standard for data centers once they are up and running. These facilities are highly automated, meaning that while there's a big burst of employment during the construction phase, the permanent day-to-day job count on the ground is surprisingly small”, within the same comment, Gowland does also state that we cannot treat this project as a massive local employment booster “as people are attempting to make it out to be”. Furthering this argument, a video interview surfaced on Facebook, including members of the Dante Group talking about the upcoming data centre. Carl Oates is quoted to mention that the site will initially hire 15 people, and then raise to 50. This is more than 50% less than the number of employees that worked in Unilever in 2020, roughly employing 123 people.
Planning Proposal - While reading the planning proposal submitted to WBC by The Dante FS Group, we raised a few questions. We initially made a note on the comments on the Carbon Dioxide emissions that this centre will produce, and how the Dante Group has “recognised” and “evaluated” this situation. In the document, the company essentially states that the centre will produce Carbon Dioxide, but its fine as the nearest housing is 100 metres away, as though the emissions will simply stop just there, failing to mention the plans of the new builds that are going to be built surrounding Bank Quay Station, and therefore the data centre.
An article posted by the Guardian recently highlights how UK data centres can create up to 123m tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the same amount that 2.7 million people create over 10 years, amounting to around how much the population of Warrington can breathe out yearly. With this amount of carbon dioxide being produced, it brings us to the argument that Carbon Dioxide is an extreme greenhouse gas, and the idea that this data centre is essentially doubling Warrington’s yearly Carbon Dioxide emissions, further contributing to the greenhouse gas effect that is further increasing climate change. Meaning that heatwaves will become more frequent, sea levels will rise etc.
In addition to the Carbon Dioxide, we also would like to point out how the planning document also directly confirms that this data centre will produce noise, both in construction and in its end usage, stating that it is “unlikely” to actually breach anything from the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), through this, we are led to believe that the Dante Group are unsure about the actual noise that this centre will produce, mentioning submitting noise surveys when the time comes. Are there any plans in place in case the noise levels are too high? Will there be much of a plan to genuinely reduce noise?
Applying back to the failure to mention the future housing projects, the only actual future plans mentioned in this planning document, is the council's plans to make changes to the Bank Quay train station, mentioning how they have “ambitions to improve the sustainability of the area.” From this, we feel as though there isn’t really a real consideration for the people that will be living near this data centre, focusing on technological advancements over the expense of real humans.
-
Original research document (articles included, along with the voices of real people).
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SOrxlRSGYCHSdzNFWrPQcgMEo5mqFuz-e_KNDUfWgTk/edit?usp=sharing
3,736
The Issue
Please double check your email to verify your signature.
Warrington Borough Council is supporting the creation of an AI data centre being built by The Dante FS Groups in place of the Unilever soap factory. Allowing this to go ahead will be detrimental to the environment and us, the people of Warrington. AI data centres have caused immense damage to the lives of millions already, and we will be next if we do not act.
We are Isabella Higham (19 years old) and Georgia Fewster (18 years old), and we are young adults in Warrington. We have seen the growth of generative AI, and we admit, we were initially generative AI users ourselves, but that soon changed when we began to read up on the damage that the data centres cause. We hope to use this petition as a way of creating a campaign to both stop the production of this data centre and enlighten more people on the harm that AI data centres can cause, to humans (including you!) and to the earth.
Join the discussion -Our Discord Server
SO, what are the facts?
As we know, the Dante FS Group is set to build an AI data centre next to Bank Quay railway station. We really would like to get our voices out there, hoping to bring awareness to more residents of Warrington as well as attempting to contribute to our future as young people.
Working with a community of people who live around Warrington, we have started a campaign to do just that, and have begun with a research paper that I would like to summarise for you.
Some of the key points we would like to mention and perhaps even get clarity on will be- energy consumption, the job market as well as some uncertainties in the planning application.
Energy -
Studies from 2024 show that an ordinary data centre supporting Meta used roughly 18TWh in energy. Comparing this to the beginning of AI data centres in 2014 from the USA, they were already using 60TWh, 3x more than Meta. Reports from the same source do also show that in 2023, AI data centres were using 176TWh of energy, and that was three years ago, and AI data centres are continuously growing in use, size and number. Along with this, there is a really interesting statement highlighting this continuous growth, due to the speed in which these centres are being built, the broader energy system would require much higher lead times and high upfront investment, potentially exposing an uneasiness when it comes to improvements in AI uptake and energy sector “bottlenecks”. Electricity demand for AI data centres is growing fast globally, and it is estimated that simply a sole focus on just electricity generation will not be enough.
London is a prime example of this struggle for energy. 34x bigger than Warrington with a land area of 1646km², London had to delay plans to build housing near an AI data centre (similar to Warrington’s plans of building new housing). London came to this decision of delay due to the fact that the national security grid could not handle the mass amounts of energy consumption that the centre was taking up, especially alongside the consumption needs of residents. If this is the case with London, how could Warrington, with a land area of 48km² be expected to handle this kind of energy consumption better than London?
Referring back to the mention of Warrington’s housing plans, wanting to build 4,500 new homes nearby to the Unilever's Factory space, we feel as though the housing and data centre could severely contradict each other, with homes ending up as a sour investment, placed next to a large AI data centre, essentially competing for energy.
Electricity bills have already been raised for Warrington residents as recently as this month, how can we be so sure that they won’t be raised again?
The same article states that a city like Cambridge (slightly smaller than Warrington at 33km² and an estimated population of 140,937) consumes around 80MW of energy. If Cambridge consumes that amount of power, it is realistic to assume that Warrington’s population consumes around 80-100MW of energy. If an AI data centre is expected to consume 500MW upon start-up, greatly exceeding the whole of Warrington's intake, how can we be sure that we can even provide enough energy for a project of this size and ambition? How can we be sure that we can provide enough energy for an ai data centre and housing?
We, and many others, have raised concerns for the population of Warrington, with the plans of building 816 houses per year, as the Warrington Local Plan reads, wouldn’t it be a better investment for all to look into a potential new hospital, to help with the rising number of residents? To perhaps release some of the strain that is so strong on our Warrington Hospital.
Jobs - One of the main arguments that are for the building of this AI data centre is the “positive” effect that it can have on the job market. However, we’d like to raise some concerns about that. The progression of AI is forever speeding up, and because of this, humans are now falling behind. Trends of AI bots replacing humans is now extremely apparent, and we can only imagine that the danger of losing our jobs to AI grows as its advancements become harder to track. Due to this alone, we feel as though there is a huge contradiction- claiming to directly bring more jobs to the table while also supporting something that is indirectly beginning to eat up the job market, adding to a much larger scale of issues in the job market, while attempting to solve the issues for employment in Warrington. In one article, Goldman Sachs is quoted to say that with the pure trajectory of AI, it is set to overtake nearly 300 million full-time jobs, potentially replacing a quarter of the work place in the US and Europe.
Our second concern is directly to do with the actual amount of jobs that will be created for the public, primarily in the long term. Quoted from a Facebook comment from Graham Gowland, "You're completely right about the low headcount on site—that is a well-known industry standard for data centers once they are up and running. These facilities are highly automated, meaning that while there's a big burst of employment during the construction phase, the permanent day-to-day job count on the ground is surprisingly small”, within the same comment, Gowland does also state that we cannot treat this project as a massive local employment booster “as people are attempting to make it out to be”. Furthering this argument, a video interview surfaced on Facebook, including members of the Dante Group talking about the upcoming data centre. Carl Oates is quoted to mention that the site will initially hire 15 people, and then raise to 50. This is more than 50% less than the number of employees that worked in Unilever in 2020, roughly employing 123 people.
Planning Proposal - While reading the planning proposal submitted to WBC by The Dante FS Group, we raised a few questions. We initially made a note on the comments on the Carbon Dioxide emissions that this centre will produce, and how the Dante Group has “recognised” and “evaluated” this situation. In the document, the company essentially states that the centre will produce Carbon Dioxide, but its fine as the nearest housing is 100 metres away, as though the emissions will simply stop just there, failing to mention the plans of the new builds that are going to be built surrounding Bank Quay Station, and therefore the data centre.
An article posted by the Guardian recently highlights how UK data centres can create up to 123m tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the same amount that 2.7 million people create over 10 years, amounting to around how much the population of Warrington can breathe out yearly. With this amount of carbon dioxide being produced, it brings us to the argument that Carbon Dioxide is an extreme greenhouse gas, and the idea that this data centre is essentially doubling Warrington’s yearly Carbon Dioxide emissions, further contributing to the greenhouse gas effect that is further increasing climate change. Meaning that heatwaves will become more frequent, sea levels will rise etc.
In addition to the Carbon Dioxide, we also would like to point out how the planning document also directly confirms that this data centre will produce noise, both in construction and in its end usage, stating that it is “unlikely” to actually breach anything from the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), through this, we are led to believe that the Dante Group are unsure about the actual noise that this centre will produce, mentioning submitting noise surveys when the time comes. Are there any plans in place in case the noise levels are too high? Will there be much of a plan to genuinely reduce noise?
Applying back to the failure to mention the future housing projects, the only actual future plans mentioned in this planning document, is the council's plans to make changes to the Bank Quay train station, mentioning how they have “ambitions to improve the sustainability of the area.” From this, we feel as though there isn’t really a real consideration for the people that will be living near this data centre, focusing on technological advancements over the expense of real humans.
-
Original research document (articles included, along with the voices of real people).
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SOrxlRSGYCHSdzNFWrPQcgMEo5mqFuz-e_KNDUfWgTk/edit?usp=sharing
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Petition created on 28 June 2026