The AI infrastructure boom just hit its first proper NIMBY wall, and this time the locals have receipts.
The Summary
- CoreWeave and DataVita's £8.2bn AI datacentre in Lanarkshire, Scotland was promised to run entirely on renewables by 2030. Government and developers privately admitted the site has a power "issue." No prospect of meeting that promise.
- Door-to-door reps offered residents free solar panels, tree planting, or cash buyouts for properties near the site. Jobs and investment haven't materialized. Locals now fear forced property sales and lost green belt land.
- The government touted this as a landmark project bringing "jobs of the future" to a rural Scottish community. Instead, it's becoming a case study in how NOT to site AI infrastructure.
The Signal
The AI datacentre land grab is getting messy. In January, the UK government announced CoreWeave and DataVita's Lanarkshire complex as an £8.2bn showcase project, complete with promises of renewable power and local jobs. By late 2025, before the ink dried, representatives from Oakes Energy Services were knocking on doors in Newarthill village. They came bearing letters, invitations to private meetings, and offers that ranged from free solar panels to cash for your house.
The pitch emphasized solar farms. The reality, according to Guardian reporting, is that the government and developers privately acknowledged the site had a power provision "issue". A nuclear reactor's worth of electricity, promised from on-site renewables, has no viable path to delivery. The 2030 timeline looks like fantasy. The jobs haven't shown up either.
"The promise was that a Scottish community would be transformed by massive investment and empowered to chase 'the jobs of the future.'"
Here's what makes this more than a local zoning fight. AI infrastructure needs industrial-scale power, but the industry is selling these projects to communities and governments as clean, job-creating economic engines. The Lanarkshire project was supposed to prove that model works outside major metro areas. Instead, it's exposing the gap between what AI companies promise and what they can actually deliver at the grid level.
The door-to-door campaign reveals the pressure points:
- Private buyout offers before public plans are finalized
- Individual meetings designed to fragment community response
- Emphasis on solar farms while dodging questions about total power demand
- Zero transparency on where the actual electricity will come from
Residents now fear property sales and loss of green belt land because of what they're calling a "badly planned" project. The phrasing matters. This isn't anti-tech sentiment. It's people who bought the initial pitch, then watched the story change when hard questions got asked about power, jobs, and timelines.
The Implication
Watch for this pattern to repeat. AI companies need land and power at scale, but they're pitching these projects using Web2 economic development language that doesn't match Web4 infrastructure realities. Datacentres don't employ many people once they're running. Renewable power at this scale takes years to build out and often doesn't pencil without grid connections that pull from fossil sources.
If you're in economic development or community planning, get forensic on the power plan before any shovels hit dirt. Ask for grid studies, not promises. Ask where the jobs are in year five, not the construction phase. And if someone's knocking on doors with buyout offers before the public review process is complete, that's not community engagement. That's damage control before the damage is visible.