Nottingham Data Center, Nottingham, New Hampshire

Tom Moulton's proposal for a data center in Nottingham, Rockingham County, New Hampshire, was withdrawn on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, hours before the planning board was due to discuss it. His lawyer's letter said the withdrawal would "allow the applicant to conduct additional research, further evaluate the property and the proposed use, and determine whether this is an appropriate use for this site," and Moulton told NHPR he wanted to come back with more information before possibly reintroducing it.

Moulton, a Seacoast businessman, had asked the town's planning board for a conceptual consultation about a data center at Nottingham Business Park on Old Turnpike Road, off Route 4, on a property of more than 100 acres of which about 40 would be used. The plan was to convert a vacant warehouse there, and opponents warned the site contains wetlands in the Lamprey River Watershed, a federally designated Wild and Scenic River system. A petition against it had more than 25,000 signatures by the afternoon of the withdrawal.

"It's been statewide," said Ellen White, the town administrator, of the response. Moulton felt the weight of it before he had spoken: "I haven't even had my voice heard yet, and everybody is coming out of the woodwork, and they want to lynch me," he said. New Hampshire law contains no definition of a data center, which leaves municipalities without a basis to write zoning for one; Representative Hope Damon, a Democrat from Croydon, said, "We don't have anything that enables the municipalities to put regulations in place."

Nottingham voters approved a moratorium on new data center proposals on September 9, 2026, giving the town time to write its own zoning. A subcommittee is drafting data center zoning to recommend by the end of the year, for Nottingham voters to decide at the annual town meeting in the spring.