🤖 Mayor Ros Jones: Chasing AI Without Power
Doncaster Mayor Ros Jones is promoting a bold vision: turning the borough into a hub for artificial intelligence, logistics, and green jobs. On paper, it sounds futuristic and promising.
But here’s the problem…
🏭 AI data centres require 500 MW of firm power — 24/7, 365 days a year.
⚡ Solar and battery schemes being pursued in Doncaster — at Fenwick, Thorpe Marsh, Tween Bridge — cannot deliver this.
❄️ In winter, solar output collapses to near zero, just as energy demand peaks.
🧠 AI needs power. Solar has none in winter.
🌾 Doncaster’s land is vanishing. Our leaders don’t have answers.
❌ It’s time to expose the green growth myth — and those pushing it.
Ros Jones is backing a fantasy — promising industrial AI growth without the infrastructure to power it. Instead, she’s allowing Doncaster’s farmland, floodplains, and villages to be carved up for speculative, land-hungry energy projects that won’t power AI — and won’t benefit residents.
🧾 Ed Miliband: Ignoring Energy Reality
Meanwhile, local MP and Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, continues to support blanket green slogans with little regard for how energy systems actually work.
Where is Ed on:
❓ The 72 TWh/year projected AI energy demand?
❓ The need for baseload nuclear, not fantasy solar?
❓ The collapse of solar performance in Doncaster’s foggy, short winter days?
❓ The BESS fire risks, flooding concerns, and farmland loss in his own patch?He talks about a “green revolution” — but backs developments that deliver neither reliable energy nor community resilience. This is climate policy by press release, not engineering.
🔋 “Store It!”? Not So Fast…
Battery developers claim they’ll save the day. But:
🕑 Lithium-ion lasts hours, not days or weeks.
⚡ Seasonal storage is decades away and incredibly inefficient.
🔥 BESS fire risk is real: Thorpe Marsh, Askern, and others are sited near homes and schools.
🚜 Land Lost, Communities Ignored
Doncaster is being sacrificed for a policy fantasy:
🌾 Prime farmland bulldozed for solar — as we face food insecurity.
💦 Floodplains targeted for development — ignoring drainage risk.
🧱 Promises of “community benefit” vanish once permission is granted.
Developers profit. Councils chase funding headlines. Locals get risk, loss, and silence
✅ What Doncaster Needs
Enough spin. Here’s what will actually work:
⚛️ Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) — firm power, perfect for AI & industry.
🌊 Offshore wind and tidal energy — reliable winter output.
🏡 Rooftop solar and insulation — help families, not foreign investors.
🔄 Local control, transparent planning, and honest accounting.
💣 The Political Folly: Growth Without Grit
Ros Jones and Ed Miliband are trying to:
🧠 Power industrial AI expansion…
🔋 …using intermittent, unreliable energy…
🌤️ …from technologies that fail when needed most.
This is the energy equivalent of building a data centre in the desert — and hoping it rains.
Doncaster deserves real answers, not greenwashed dreams.
🚨 Final Word: Doncaster Is Not a Dumping Ground
❌ We are not the place for failed policy experiments.
❌ We will not accept farmland sacrificed for fake green growth.
❌ We will not let Ros Jones and Ed Miliband sell us out to energy myths.
It’s time for honest energy, real industrial policy, and a future powered by physics — not politics.
📚 References
1. BEIS Electricity Generation Dataset 2024 – UK Government Energy Statistics
2. Loughborough University Study on Digital Energy Demand (2023) – Research Brief
3. National Grid Future Energy Scenarios (FES) 2024 – National Grid ESO
4. AI Opportunities Action Plan (2024) – Gov.uk AI Growth Zones
5. MIT Technology Review – “AI models like GPT use 10x more energy than a Google search”, 2023
6. UKERC Energy Data Centre – Solar Output – UKERC
7. Thorpe Marsh, Fenwick and Doncaster BESS Applications – NSIP Planning Inspectorate
8. Rolls Royce SMR Deployment Vision – Nuclear Industry Association
9. Uptime Institute (2023) – “Data centres of the future: 500MW firm power requirement for Tier IV sites”
10. HoL Committee on Land Use and Solar Planning (2023) – Evidence submissions from CPRE and NFU
SAY NO TO THE DESTRUCTION OF OUR LAND 
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