Why Devon is saying no to a data centre
Residents of Great Torrington in Devon gathered to protest a proposal by Xlinks to build one of Europe's largest AI data centres on an 850-acre site near the town. The consultation revealed that the project is linked to Xlinks' attempt to salvage its previously rejected Morocco-UK Power Project, which the UK government withdrew support for due to security and sustainability concerns. Local opposition is driven by fears regarding environmental impact, traffic, and the company's financial motives following the cancellation of the subsea cable initiative.
- ▪Xlinks proposed building a large AI data centre and a battery storage site in Great Torrington, Devon, which sparked significant local opposition.
- ▪The UK government rejected the original Morocco-UK Power Project in June 2025, citing risks related to security, delivery, and reliance on a single long-distance subsea cable.
- ▪Xlinks had invested heavily in the 3,800km subsea cable project, which was intended to transmit renewable energy from Morocco to North Devon.
- ▪Local residents expressed concerns about noise, light pollution, traffic, and the potential negative impact on the local tourism and agriculture sectors.
- ▪Company director Simon Morrish admitted that reviving the power project was a desired outcome of the new data centre proposal.
2 outlets in our directory ran this story, first to last over 22 hours. All of the coverage we found sits in one bucket: lean left. That one-sidedness is itself worth noticing.
- ▪ Why are Americans so united against data centers? — CBS News — Top
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| Original publisher | The Critic |
| Canonical URL | https://thecritic.co.uk/why-devon-is-saying-no-to-a-data-centre/ |
| Publication time | Fri, 24 Jul 2026 01:00:52 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-07-24T01:51:52.461Z |
| Last seen | 2026-07-24T01:51:53.412Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | _NLZG8Wr_0Gk · 2 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
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Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
The quiet market town of Great Torrington in Devon felt more like Morocco during the recent heatwave. Yet despite stifling conditions, dozens of sweaty locals amassed in the town hall on the evening of 25 June, troubled by an issue with far more lasting consequences than a hot spell. Earlier that day, many had heard for the first time, either by a very late letter or from their MP’s Facebook page, that a public consultation with a company called Xlinks was to be held at the town hall, at which they would have an opportunity to express their feelings about the proposal to build one of Europe’s largest AI data centres on their doorstep.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at The Critic.
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