Beyond the Box: Data Centres need to become better neighbours

The rapid growth of AI and cloud computing is driving unprecedented demand for data centres. But technical performance alone will not secure the next generation of sites.

Successful development will increasingly depend on planning, placemaking, infrastructure innovation and gaining the confidence of local communities.

Chapman Taylor brings deep experience in urban and suburban placemaking, using integrated design and masterplanning expertise to unlock complex sites and deliver development.

Chapman Taylor's mixed-use sector experts across our international studios each research and publish regular industry Insight papers. In this paper, Daniel Morgans, Director in our London studio, considers how data centres can respond more sensitively to the places and communities in which they are located.

Data centres have become essential infrastructure, but they are also becoming increasingly contentious development proposals.

A recent Economist article highlights the scale of the emerging backlash in the United States. By August 2026, an Economist/YouGov poll recorded 63% opposition to new data centres, while American counties had considered 409 moratoriums or similar restrictions in the first eight months of the year, almost seven times the previous year's total. Significantly, much of this opposition is not directed at AI itself. Concerns centre on the local consequences of development: electricity demand, water consumption, construction traffic and environmental impact. See how data centres became one of America’s hottest political issues.

There is an important lesson here for the European and UK markets. Data centres can no longer be regarded simply as highly engineered buildings located wherever power, land and fibre converge. Increasingly, they need to be considered as pieces of urban and regional infrastructure which must earn their place within their surroundings.

Planning needs to start with place

Chapman Taylor’s work on Infrastructure, Industrial and Transportation projects is also relevant here.  Our understanding of the issues and challenges puts us in a unique position to understand how Data Centres can be integrated successfully into communities, unlocking development.

What is important in Data Centre design, from a place perspective?

• Power capacity and resilience – typically 20–100MW+ for major facilities
• High-capacity fibre connectivity
• Operational resilience
• Flexible power density – conventional data halls may average around 5–15kW per rack, while AI and high-performance computing can require 30kW+ per rack, with some installations substantially higher.
• Efficient cooling – cooling strategy must respond to power density, local climate and water availability
• Low energy overhead – Power Usage Effectiveness – modern facilities increasingly targeting c.1.2–1.4 depending on climate, resilience and cooling strategy
• Water efficiency – minimise potable water demand through closed-loop, air-cooled or hybrid systems, particularly in water-stressed locations.
• Scalable masterplanning – provide space for phased expansion without compromising operations.
• High security and controlled access
• 24/7 maintainability
• Rapid deliverability –early energisation; grid connection dates can be more important to the client than the building programme itself.
• Planning and community acceptability

Large data centre campuses can create considerable visual and environmental impacts: extensive buildings, secure perimeters, substations, generators, cooling equipment and service infrastructure. A technically efficient masterplan can still create a poor planning proposition if these elements are arranged without sufficient consideration of landscape, neighbouring communities or the wider settlement pattern.

The principles Chapman Taylor has previously outlined in our work on sustainable masterplanning are directly applicable: understanding context, strengthening green infrastructure, carefully managing water and energy, creating resilient infrastructure and engaging communities from the beginning of the design process.

Urban design can make a significant difference. Building mass can be broken down or positioned to reduce visual impact; existing landscape can be retained and reinforced; woodland belts, ecological corridors and sustainable drainage can become fundamental components of the masterplan rather than residual mitigation. Routes, entrances, boundaries and infrastructure compounds can all be planned as part of a coherent landscape strategy.

The objective should be simple: design the infrastructure around the place, rather than forcing the place to accommodate the infrastructure.

Important factors in the planning process are:

• Grid capacity and new power infrastructure
• Noise impact, particularly from continuous 24-hour plant, cooling equipment and generator testing.
• Visual and landscape impact of large buildings, rooftop plant and associated infrastructure.
• Water demand
• Construction traffic and disruption, often over several years.
• Loss of countryside, agricultural land or greenfield character.
• Ecology, drainage and biodiversity impacts.
• Air-quality concerns associated with standby generators.
• Limited perceived local benefit, particularly compared with the scale of land and energy consumption.
• Community opposition and political scrutiny, especially where proposals appear imposed rather than locally responsive.
• Difficulty demonstrating social value in a development type with relatively modest operational employment.
• Public concern over grid competition, whether technically justified or not.

With a number of notable successes in negotiating tricky planning permissions, Chapman Taylor is uniquely placed to help clients navigate these factors.

Noise is a particularly important issue. Cooling plant, generators, transformers and associated equipment can create continuous background noise very different from the intermittent activity associated with conventional commercial development.

Effective mitigation begins with the masterplan, not with an acoustic fence added at the end. Setbacks, orientation, building mass, landform and landscape can all help protect sensitive boundaries. Acoustic enclosures, quieter plant selection and carefully positioned servicing areas can then provide further layers of mitigation.

Data centres require enormous and highly resilient power supplies. Grid connections, substations and transmission infrastructure therefore need to be considered alongside architectural and landscape design from the outset. Opportunities may include renewable generation, battery storage, smarter grid relationships and, where appropriate, using waste heat to support neighbouring buildings or district energy networks.

*Waste-heat recovery is already becoming a regulatory requirement in markets including Germany, while EU legislation is increasingly pushing larger data centres towards heat reuse where technically and economically feasible.

Water strategies similarly need to move beyond simply calculating demand. Closed-loop and low-water cooling technologies, rainwater harvesting, recycled water and intelligent landscape and drainage strategies can materially reduce pressure on local systems.

These are technical challenges, but they are increasingly also planning and social licence to operate (SLO) challenges.

Chapman Taylor's work on communities and social value begins with a straightforward principle: listen. Early engagement allows local concerns to influence proposals before positions become entrenched and creates a better understanding of what a development can contribute to its community.

That is particularly important for infrastructure which may bring significant investment and employment but whose benefits are not always immediately visible to neighbouring residents.

Consultation should therefore not simply explain a completed design. It should help shape it by identifying key views, landscape features, traffic concerns, environmental sensitivities, and opportunities for tangible local benefit.

From technical infrastructure to responsible development

Chapman Taylor has previously explored how data centres have grown from specialist infrastructure into one of the fundamental building types of the digital economy, and the extraordinary resilience required of their power, cooling, security and communications systems.

As data centre campuses become larger and public scrutiny increases, architecture, masterplanning, landscape, environmental engineering and community engagement need to work together from the earliest stages.

At Chapman Taylor, our experience in both technically complex projects and large-scale urban design allows us to approach the problem from both directions. We understand the operational demands of data centres, but also the planning realities of bringing major development forward.

The opportunity is not simply to disguise an industrial building. It is to create better integrated, quieter, greener and more resource-efficient infrastructure, designed from the outset to be a responsible neighbour.