Last week, ministers approved plans to redevelop part of the Truman Brewery estate near Brick Lane.

Listen to this article

The scheme includes offices, shops, public space, 44 homes and a new data centre.

Local campaigners wanted a housing-led scheme instead. Their plan promised 350 homes in a borough where more than 30,000 households sit on the social housing waiting list. The dispute has turned one London site into part of a much wider question: should scarce land, electricity and construction workers go towards homes or the data centres that power our growing use of AI?

From inside the construction industry, that question feels too blunt. Britain needs more homes. It also needs the digital infrastructure that supports banks, hospitals, public services and much of modern business. Demand for computing power will grow, whether we build the facilities here or rely on more of them overseas.

We need to look instead at how much we can build with each acre of land, megawatt of power and hour of skilled work. That matters because the strain has already begun to show. Since 2022, grid capacity constraints temporarily halted new housing developments in Hillingdon, Hounslow and Ealing. These boroughs share part of the electricity network that serves the large cluster of data centres around Slough and Heathrow.

Pressure will continue to grow: the National Energy System Operator estimates that data centres currently use 7.6 terawatt-hours of electricity in Great Britain, with demand potentially reaching........

© LBC