On 22 January 2026, the U.K.’s Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government conceded it had made a legal error in approving a £1.00 billion (€1.16 billion) 90-megawatt hyperscale data center in Iver, Buckinghamshire (developed by Greystoke Land), without requiring a full environmental impact assessment. The development site, planned on a former landfill 25 miles west of London, had been previously approved under the U.K.’s Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project regime.
The project is now under judicial review following a legal challenge by advocacy groups Foxglove and Global Action Plan. No specific water volume projections have been publicly disclosed for the Iver facility, but water companies in the U.K (e.g., Thames Water) have estimated from recent abstraction applications that water use for a hyperscale center ranges from 4 billion liters per day to 19 billion liters per day—equivalent to the water use of 50,000 households. Much of this water supply comes from municipalities, which is risky under future resilience scenarios.
