The old brewery will be storing data not drams
Earlier this year, we reported on the development proposals for Brick Lane’s Truman Brewery – which included a data centre. This week, those plans have been approved.
The £500m scheme will see the Brewery itself converted into offices, with a cinema, supermarket, 44 flats (including six for social rent) and a market on surrounding sites. A derelict building on Grey Eagle Street will be developed into a data centre.
The decision has been met with a lot of backlash. Tower Hamlets council and local campaigners had pushed for the land to be used for hundreds of homes instead. However, housing minister Matthew Pennycook approved the scheme anyway, on behalf of Housing Secretary Angela Rayner.
The Save Brick Lane campaign group, which has been fighting the development since 2020, called the decision “deeply disappointing” and “clearly rushed” in a statement on Instagram. They’re now seeking legal advice, and holding an open meeting on 10th August to lay out their objections.
Once London’s largest brewery, the Truman Brewery on Brick Lane is currently home to food markets, vintage stalls, homeware and music shops, coffee shops, gallery spaces, bars and more. It’s a big draw on what is one of the buzziest streets in all of the city, famed for its curry houses.
Opponents to the proposals believe that a data centre – a facility that houses servers and networking equipment to help power services like AI and streaming – was added into the plans to make them attractive, after the government declared them critical national infrastructure last year.
Of more than 100 new data centres planned to be built in the UK in the next five years, half will be in and around London, raising big questions over the amount of resources they will consume and the further impact they will have on the city’s housing.
