Slough Lib Dems are trying to get data centres working for residents' benefit when they are well located. But Lib Dems want them blocked when they are proposed for unsuitable sites such as the former ICI site intended for 950 desperately needed new homes until the Labour Leader broke his promise, and sold off the land for data centre development.
The Leader of the Lib Dem Group of councillors on Slough Council, Cllr Sabia Akram, successfully proposed an amendment to strengthen a motion on data centres at a meeting of Slough Council.
As reported in the Slough Express, the Lib Dem amendment added to the Council's call on the Government to publish evidence on the cumulative impacts of data centres.
Cllr Akram proposed that for each data centre scheme a public dashboard/visual information display will be created to show what financial contribution the data centre developer was making towards the community.
The amendment would mean such dashboards would show how the money contributed was spent and allocated, and what projects or community facilities the fund was supporting.
Cllr Akram also said currently there is not enough evidence on data centres' impact on communities on issues such as air quality and noise. She stated: “Slough shouldn't be seen as a soft-landing ground for data centres.”
Forcing data centre developers to publicly show in detail how they were helping the local communities and residents, should encourage them to offer more funding to help local communities. This could include opportunities for IT training for local residents.
But Lib Dems believe data centres should only be approved in suitable locations, and blocked in unsuitable sites.
For example, Lib Dems such as Cllrs Amjad Abbasi and Asim Naveed were strongly opposed to the decision of the former Labour Leader of Slough Council when he sold off the Council-owned land on the former ICI/AkzoNobel site despite having promised the residents of Slough the land would be used for almost 1,000 desperately needed new homes. Instead of the promised new homes for Slough residents, the Labour Council Leader sold the land for data centre development. That should not have happened.
