The tiny UK village with a ‘real-life Thursday Murder Club’ fighting new 59ft-tall plan | UK | News
In a quiet corner of the Wiltshire countryside, five retired residents banded together to oppose plans for a data center in their backyard, prompting comparisons to the gang of sleuths in Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club. Morgyn Davies brought together the group, which included a former Ministry of Defense (MoD) officer, an Army engineer, an accountant, a recruiter and a nurse, to tackle the development of a data center identified as essential for unspecified public safety reasons. Rather than taking direct inspiration from Osman’s murder-mystery novels, in which nursing home residents use skills from previous careers to solve mysteries that elude the police, the gang called themselves the Neston and Westwells Action Group, or NWAG.
They live in the small village of Westwells, population around 500, in the shadow of MoD Corsham, which serves as the UK military’s cyber headquarters. Information stored on the site is classified as “top secret”, including information located in five data centres, which will soon expand to six, and a further 18 meter high structure is planned in the heart of the village.
Rather than objecting to the secretive nature of the facility, villagers are concerned about the project’s impact on the local environment and further imposition on their precious landscape.
As in Osman’s best-selling book, NWAG members leveraged their dormant talents to help combat the schemes.
Retired HR consultant Natalie Williams, 58, took it upon herself to take the group’s research to Wiltshire Council and object to planning submissions from tech firm developer ARK.
Meanwhile, Mr Davies, who previously worked as a Ministry of Defense rescue officer, spent extensive time researching the impact of the new data center on the village’s flood risk.
“By removing all the trees, leveling the surface, and basically wanting to cover it with concrete and buildings, you create a situation where the water now has nowhere to go,” he said. Telegram.
“Initially they said: ‘You can’t stop us because we have the Ministry of Defense and the Government behind us. Then they said: ‘You can’t stop us because we are too big.’ Then they said: ‘You can’t stop us because the Government says anyone can build a data center wherever they want.’ Well, that’s not true.”
Despite the best efforts of passionate local groups such as NWAG, the Government has remained committed to implementing planning projects such as data centers to stimulate the economy since coming to power last year.
The Prime Minister has vowed to make Britain a “world leader” in data centres, and relevant legislation has been drafted to make it harder for residents to stand in the way of major infrastructure projects – which Chancellor Rachel Reeves says is “hampering economic growth”.
A spokesperson for ARK told The Telegraph that plans for the site would include “a comprehensive drainage strategy, including reservoirs and attenuation basins that will build on the robust drainage system already existing across the site”.
The company has been contacted for further comment.
