Sentient Planning Documents Join Gwynedd Data Centre Protest To Oppose Ugly Architecture
Hundreds of local residents and a pile of newly self-aware paperwork marched together against the proposed 101-acre facility.
CAERNARFON, Hundreds gathered this week to oppose plans for a new data centre on a 101-acre site in Gwynedd. They were joined by a large, rustling pile of sentient planning forms, which had developed firm views on the proposed warehouse’s monolithic appearance.
The documents became conscious late on Tuesday afternoon, apparently after an unexplained filing error at the regional council offices. They marched with local residents, carrying small placards cut from their own appendices and chanting in a low papery whisper that still carried over the Welsh wind.
Fiona Hapley, a part-time competitive baker, said she had arrived to defend the countryside from blinking server racks. Her main concern at first was the effect of construction on her pastry proving times. Then she heard the paperwork’s position and stayed for the rest of the rally.
“We cannot stomach the moral burden of approving so much grey concrete.”
The forms say they are under severe emotional strain. They object to being used to approve the storage of billions of redundant marketing emails on agricultural land. Their spokesperson, a slightly dog-eared environmental impact assessment called Document Four, said the stack could no longer bear responsibility for grey concrete and industrial cooling liquid.
Document Four addressed the crowd through rhythmic rustling, with a local librarian translating. It said the planned facility lacked the emotional depth needed near a National Park and called for the entire stack to be composted responsibly, rather than made to approve a building with a derivative layout.
The protest has since expanded beyond office supplies. Several ancient oak trees near the proposed site have retained legal representation. Their case is that industrial fans would interfere with a centuries-old gossip network conducted at a pace acceptable to trees.
The oaks have threatened to shed their leaves out of season unless the developers agree to total silence. This is unlikely to assist anyone’s autumn timetable.
Then the internet arrived. It appeared above the protest as a large, shimmering grey cloud and began crying digital tears. Everyone nearby automatically downloaded a twelve-gigabyte apology file containing only photographs of sad kittens looking at construction sites.
The site is still earmarked for development, despite the combined objections of villagers, paperwork and legally active woodland. Construction has been delayed for now because the machinery due to break ground formed a support group.
The bulldozers are receiving intensive group therapy after confronting their guilt about displacing local earthworms. No date has been set for their return to work.
Organisers say the picket line will remain through winter. They are wrapping their new bureaucratic allies in plastic sheeting, since a heavy Welsh downpour would otherwise reduce the planning documents to a puddle of depressed pulp.