Stop Monster Data Centre in Auchtertool!

By Jack Reekie, SSP Fife and Tayside

Say no to monster AI data centres!

SSP Fife and Tayside branch members conducted a day of action in Auchtertool this week to show our solidarity with local residents facing the prospect of a data centre development as large as the village itself. The proposed data centre is to be built right at one of the major entrances to the village.

The Cato data centre with its accompanying auxiliary buildings and substation will not provide Auchtertool or anyone living nearby with employment a meaningful way which would improve Fife, but instead this data centre will ruin the land it’s built upon while polluting local burns.

The entire development is an absurdly irresponsible use of land and resources, with this data centre and the 23 other proposed AI data centres across Scotland expected to consume 1.5 times Scotland’s peak energy consumption. You can’t increase electricity consumption by that much without that massively increased demand increasing prices, which will hit Scotland at a time when energy bills are already sky high!

The Scottish Government seems all too eager to allow these data centres to be built, which will only serve shareholders while the negative impacts of these monstrosities will be placed firmly on our shoulders. But where’s the benefits for us? Where’s the development of industry in Fife that we so desperately need? Are data centres really the best that we can hope for?

The Scottish Socialist Party doesn’t think so. We’ve delivered hundreds of leaflets to show our support to residents in their campaign to save their homes! We’ve had wonderful positive conversations with people across Auchtertool, and we will stand by them in their fight to block the monster data centres which would ruin our countryside!

Our position is clear: we demand a moratorium on all data centres being built across Scotland, or in lieu of a national moratorium by the Scottish Government, we will urge councils to block planning permission for data centres wherever they are proposed.

And for those applications that could benefit Scotland (such as in the field of medical research), democratic ownership could ensure any development is made only with the consent of the communities impacted.

The benefits should go to stakeholders, not shareholders!