Pause all new data centre developments in Cape Town immediately.

The City of Cape Town Municipal Planning Tribunal is approving data centres without any meaningful public participation, and without providing information relating to issues of water- and electricity use, and without any impact assessments to find out what the environmental, social, economic, health and other impacts will be.

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We need a pause on the approval of new data centres in Cape Town (and the country!), until there has been meaningful public participation and new regulations put in place to address these, and other, questions:

How much electricity will these data centres use?
Where is this electricity coming from?
Will they be paying less for this electricity than the people of Cape Town via wheeling arrangements with independent power producers?
How do the data centres plan to deal with power outages, eg, will there be backup diesel generators installed?
How much water will the data centres use?
Where is this water coming from?
How do they plan to deal with the wastewater?
Could this land be better used for housing?
How will the data centres affect the property values in the area?
How much noise will the data centres emit?
What is the carbon footprint of the data centres?
How will the data centres contribute to the economy of South Africa? Will they be paying tax here?
How many permanent jobs will be created?
What will the “heat island” effect be from the mega data centres?
What is the impact on biodiversity in the area?
How will the data centres affect the people living in the surrounding areas?
Which companies will be using these data centres?
What is the expected “life-span” of these data centres?
How will owners of the data centres deal with the electronic waste generated?

We all need a say in which developments are approved in our city. The Municipal Planning Tribunal does not speak for the people. We ask that they pause all NEW data centre approvals, as well as applications for expansion of existing ones, AND cancel any that were approved without proper consultation and without detailed information on all the impacts.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-04-28-new-data-centres-set-to-swallow-34-of-cape-towns-current-electricity-supply/
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-02-10-the-hidden-impacts-of-ai-data-centres-on-water-climate-and-future-power-costs/
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-02-11-why-the-clouds-of-secrecy-over-the-impacts-of-sa-data-centre-growth/
https://groundup.org.za/article/giant-data-centres-get-the-first-green-light-from-cape-town-tribunal/