There will definitely be no data center in Zeewolde. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is abandoning the plan to build a large data center in the place in the Flevopolder. The tech company announced this on Thursday evening. According to Meta, there is no question of “a good match” with the environment. There was a lot of local resistance to the initiative. “In the end we decided that building a data center in Zeewolde is not the right investment,” said a spokesperson for Meta.
Three months ago, Meta already decided to suspend the construction plans for the time being, partly because of resistance from the region, from politics and society. For example, local parties lost seats in the municipal elections in March in Zeewolde and opponents gained popularity. There was also considerable opposition to the plan in national politics: Minister Hugo de Jonge (Public Housing and Spatial Planning, CDA) had already spoken out against it before. In addition, the cabinet refused to sell 80 of the necessary 160 hectares of land to Meta, which already owned the other half.
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