What are datacentres doing to the places we love? In Slough, I found a bleak answer | John Harris

Whitehall wants to triple the UK’s number of datacentres – but demand for electricity and water means that could be at the expense of new homes Amid headlines about the UK’s drought, Europe’s wildfires and impossible global temperatures, it was 28C when I arrived in Slough last Monday. I was there to look around Slough Trading Estate, a place that might once have conjured up images of the TV comedy The Office, many of whose laughs came at the expense of this overgrown patch of suburbia, 20-odd…