On Slough Trading Estate, the cluster of data centres lining the streets, each protected with electric fences, CCTV and security guards, is a dystopian eyesore.

Alongside the rows and rows of large buildings is a constant hum, akin to the sound of an in-use vacuum. It’s emitted from the data centres, huge buildings which house powerful computer servers used to facilitate digital activity.

Dr Ambily Banerjee, organiser of grassroots campaign group Slough Against Data Centres, said the sound goes on every day and throughout the year.

“It causes ringing in your ears and it can cause headaches, anxiety, insomnia and even cardiovascular risk goes up with noise,” Banerjee told The i Paper on a trip to the site.

Residents living in the shadow of the data centres complain of sleep deprivation due to the noise and vibrations, campaigners say. Other worries include heat-related effects from the high temperatures generated.

Data centres warm up their immediate vicinities by an average of 2°C, and as much as 9°C, one study by Cambridge University researchers suggests.

But individuals directly impacted by data centres are often reluctant to share their stories with the media as many live in social housing and fear retaliation from speaking out, Dr Banerjee claimed.

She doesn’t live close to a data centre yet – but plans to build more in Langley, where she lives, have her and other locals worried.

“The concerning thing now is that these that have been built more recently are much bigger. They’re hyperscale. They’re taking up a lot more space, and they are huge monstrosities.

“And now they’re moving out of Slough Trading Estate areas into more residential areas, into green belt areas and areas that could be used for agricultural land,” Dr Banerjee added.

Slough is not just the data centre capital of the UK, but of Europe. It’s home to around 40 huge buildings making it the area with the second largest concentration of centres outside Virginia in the US.

The UK has become one of the leading proponents of AI in Europe with recent figures showing the industry helped grew the economy at its fastest rate in two years, despite infrastructure concerns over data centres and their power consumption.

Data centres in the area are owned by big firms such as Equinix, Digital Realty and GTR, providing services for global tech companies such as Google and Amazon.

Several more are under construction or planned, including one in Langley. Microsoft is proposing building a data centre there, a short distance from the Elizabeth Line train station and a number of schools.

In one instance, planning minister Matthew Pennycook granted permission for a data centre on greenbelt land after an application submitted by Tritax Big Box, a firm that develops large-scale warehouses, was rejected by the council. It’s a decision the council “remains disappointed with”.

Slough Against Data Centres has launched a petition calling for Slough Borough Council to pause new data centre development. It also wants the Government to carry out a comprehensive independent assessment of reported impacts on residents, infrastructure and the environment.

“We’ve seen in the US there’s infrastructure costs for when they put these things in place, the electricity supplies to support these big monstrosities in our town, then the cost gets passed on to us,” Banerjee said.

Research by Open Data Manchester shows 77 per cent of data centre electricity consumption is concentrated in just four areas: Slough, Hampshire, Hillingdon and Tower Hamlets.

During this year’s summer, the hottest on record, those living close to the data centre hubs reported “burning” heat.

‘We are really concerned about our health’

Banerjee fears house prices may also be impacted because “no one wants to live next to a noisy, horrible-looking data centre”.

“I cannot sell my house and just go away because the house prices went down significantly in the last two years,” she said.

“I want to leave … we are really concerned about our health in the future.”

Kurkul said she has already purchased a water filter over concerns about how water in the area is being affected.

“The water that I’m drinking from the tap, I think that it has been already contaminated.”

While there have been comprehensive studies on quality, data centres use large amounts of water to cool the systems and at times, are situated in areas already under water stress.

Some authorities, such as Edinburgh, are considering banning their construction over local concerns over their environmental impact.

‘I’m so pleased my house is not near them’

As Dr Banerjee points to the data centre off Wexham Road, a woman stops to talk. The woman, a cancer patient who did not want to be identified, is concerned about the impacts of the data centres on health and water supply, as well as associated pollution.

“I’m so pleased that my house is not near or on the trading estate,” she said. “They never asked permission of the people who live in this borough if these data centres can go up, they didn’t tell [of] the harm.”

Dr Banerjee does not believe a single case of cancer can be connected to the data centres but she is worried that the air pollution and chemicals they release have links with illnesses people in the area are dying from.

Healthy life expectancy in Slough is significantly lower than the national average, 58.1 years for men and 60.3 years for women, meaning they require health and social care interventions at a younger age and for longer. The averages for England are 63.1 and 63.9 respectively.

Public health experts have warned that PFAS, widely known as forever chemicals because they take centuries to break down, are present in data centre cooling materials and could pollute surrounding areas.

PFAS have been linked to serious health conditions such as cancer, lower immunity and high cholesterol.

“We don’t want to wait 20 years like many, many cases in history where companies have polluted the environment and the residents who live right next to them have ended up with horrible diseases,” Banerjee said.

“There are people with certain conditions already that have said the data centres have made it much worse.”

Slough Borough Council said: “The council is of course mindful to the potential environmental impacts of data centres within the borough, as we are of all industries and developments, and must, and do, consider them at great length when proposals are presented to us.”

It added that it thoroughly assesses proposals and seeks to mitigate and ensure the best environmental and wider benefits associated with these developments.