Government admits error over Buckinghamshire AI data centre following legal challenge
The Government has reversed its decision to approve an AI data centre in Buckinghamshire following legal action by Foxglove and Global Action Plan, supported by Law for Change.
In July 2025, Angela Rayner, then Secretary of State, approved the construction of a hyperscale data centre despite Buckinghamshire Council having rejected the plans in June 2024 over concerns about their impact on the green belt. The Government’s decision allowed the development to proceed without a proper Environmental Impact Assessment and without legally binding commitments from the developer to reduce its environmental impact.
Data centres require huge amounts of electricity to power the computers they contain, as well as significant quantities of fresh water for cooling. Their environmental impacts can therefore be substantial.
Foxglove and Global Action Plan, represented by Leigh Day, brought a legal challenge against the Government and the developer at the High Court, arguing that the electricity demands and environmental impacts of the facility had not been properly considered.
The legal challenge ultimately led to a major victory. In January 2026, the Government wrote to the parties admitting that its decision contained a “serious logical error” and that it should be “quashed”. The error arose because the Government had relied on promises from the developer to introduce measures mitigating the data centre’s environmental impact, without ensuring that those commitments were secured in a legally binding agreement.
The case has now been settled in a way that ensures those commitments are enforceable in law.
The developer has signed a Unilateral Undertaking securing a package of environmental mitigation measures. These include matching the data centre’s entire energy demand with 100% renewable energy or hourly carbon-free energy, achieving energy efficiency substantially better than the industry average, and using photovoltaic cells and air-source heat pumps to provide 100% of the building’s regulated electricity demand. If the conditions are not met, Buckinghamshire Council will be able to sue the developer for failure to comply.
Martha Dark co-executive director of Foxglove said: “We’re very pleased with the important precedent which this case has established: data centre developers’ environmental promises must be legally binding, not just PR and greenwash.
“However, there is still more work needed to ensure that the public are not left to foot the environmental bill for Big Tech. We need to see real action from ministers and planning authorities to ensure that data centres can only be built if they are able to prove they will not cause harm to our climate or water supplies.”
Global Action Plan CEO Sonja Graham said: “People across the UK are increasingly concerned about data centres’ proliferation and what it means for access to water and power. The government being asleep at the wheel like this will do nothing to reassure them.
“We urgently need tight, legally binding environmental standards for all new data centres, to ensure that Big Tech profits don’t come at the expense of escalating carbon emissions or household bills. Without them, the interests of communities across the UK will continue to be subordinate to those of the US tech billionaires.”
A wider impact
The case has also contributed to wider changes in how the environmental impacts of data centres are considered.
Data centre developers have routinely claimed that their facilities will be ‘green’ or run on ‘low carbon energy’ without putting in place any real commitments to ensure this is the case.
The concession in this case establishes the precedent that data centre developers’ claims on measures to protect the environment must be concrete and enforceable.
Law for Change is proud to have supported this important legal challenge. The outcome demonstrates the role that strategic legal action can play in ensuring that environmental commitments are not merely promises, but legal obligations that can be enforced.
The case also highlights the importance of continuing to scrutinise the rapid expansion of data centre infrastructure and its implications for climate, energy and water resources.
Since supporting this case, Law for Change has gone on to support a further legal challenge concerning a data centre in Scotland. We remain interested in this emerging area and in supporting strategic cases that can help ensure the growth of data centre infrastructure does not come at the expense of environmental protection and the UK’s climate commitments.
The battle is far from over, but this case shows what can be achieved when communities, campaigners and lawyers use the law to hold decision-makers and developers to account.