Plans from tech giant Google to build a huge new data centre campus on a designated Local Wildlife Site in South Essex have been challenged by the wildlife charity Buglife. A letter to Google UK highlights concerns that the proposed Thurrock Data Centre would lead to the loss of over half of the Arena Essex Local Wildlife Site- home to a nationally important population of invertebrates.
This unique wildlife has been shaped by a complex history of quarrying, landfill and motor sports. Separated from the Lakeside Retail Park by the traffic-filled A13, it was once home to the Arena Essex Raceway until it closed its doors to stock cars and speedway bikes in 2018. However, it has long been recognised that nature has found a home in its mosaic of brownfield features, calcareous grassland, flowery Thames Terrace Grassland, bare ground, scrub and young woodland. Its nationally important invertebrate assemblage includes the Brown-banded Carder Bee (Bombus humilis), Five-banded Weevil-wasp (Cerceris quinquefasciata) and the Dingy Skipper butterfly (Erynnis tages) – with many more to be found – while rare plants such as Endangered Broad-leaved Cudweed (Filago pyramidata) and birds such as Red Listed Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos) can also be found across its 52 hectares.
Today Buglife has written to Google UK Managing Director, Kate Alessi, to express its concerns about the proposals put forward by the Google-associated ‘Global Infrastructure UK Limited’. The Thurrock Data Centre plans would lead to over 80% of its precious ‘Open Mosaic Habitat on Previously Developed Land’ habitat being lost, and destroy Thames Terrace Grasslands that Natural England, the Government’s adviser for the natural environment in England, says is now limited to just tens of hectares remaining. This would spell disaster for its special wildlife.
Jamie Robins, Buglife Programmes Manager, says, “Arena Essex is a really unique place for nature in Thurrock. This is simply the wrong place for Google to think of building a data centre campus. If Google is going to live up to its sustainability claims, it shouldn’t even consider bulldozing a Local Wildlife Site. Against the background of a nature emergency, with our insects in steep decline, we have to protect our best remaining habitats – and for powerful companies to make better decisions.”
Google’s plans to raze the site and create a data centre campus are at odds with the claims and commitments in its 2025 Sustainability Report. The report claims that Google is “Cultivating nature on our campuses” and “rebuilding nature in the very places it’s been paved over”. It boasts that “As of the end of 2024, we created or restored approximately 74 acres of habitat” on Google’s campuses. Meanwhile, the Thurrock Data Centre would undo this work and destroy 32 acres of wildlife-rich habitat – motivating over 2,500 supporters to already sign a petition calling on Google to withdraw its plans.
The loss of the Arena Essex site would be yet another devastating blow for Thurrock’s wildlife, which has already seen the loss of multiple designated Local Wildlife Sites to development in recent years, with further threats on the horizon from the Tilbury 3 proposals to expand the Port of Tilbury and the now approved Lower Thames Crossing which cuts across the borough.
Read the letter to Google UK Managing Director, Kate Alessi here.
Main Image Credit: Dingy Skipper (Erynnis tages) © Greg Hitchcock