Nottingham, New Hampshire Votes to Pause Data Centers: What the Moratorium Means

On the evening of Tuesday, September 9, 2026, residents of Nottingham, New Hampshire walked into a special town meeting and did something that leaves little room for interpretation. They voted 1,335 to 143 to put a 12-month hold on any data center development inside town limits. In a town of roughly 5,200 people, that is a lopsided result, and it followed months of packed meetings, a fast-growing petition, and one withdrawn project on Route 4.

If you searched "Nottingham data center" because you live in or near this town, or because you saw the vote in the news, here is what happened, who objected, what the developer has said publicly, and what a moratorium actually does.

First, the basics: what a data center is, and why towns fight them

A data center is a large building full of computers that store and process the data behind the internet, from streaming and email to the artificial intelligence tools that have driven a wave of new construction. These buildings draw a lot of electricity to run and a lot of water to keep the machines cool, which is why they land on a town's radar. Communities across the country have pushed back over the strain on the local power grid, the water used for cooling, noise from equipment, and the size of the buildings themselves.

That is the shape of the Nottingham fight too. Now to the specifics.

The project that started it

The Nottingham dispute traces back to a single proposal. Thomas Moulton, a Seacoast entrepreneur, filed a preliminary application with the town on April 29, 2026 to develop a data center on a property off Route 4, at a site reported as the Nottingham Business Park on Old Turnpike Road. Local reporting described a planned building of roughly 200,000 square feet on a parcel of about 150 acres, much of it wetlands, with a smaller portion usable for construction.

The plan drew attention after local outlets reported on it in May, and opposition built quickly. An online petition against the project grew to more than 25,000 signatures. The planning board moved its scheduled meeting to Nottingham School to handle the expected crowd.

Then, on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 27, hours before that meeting, Moulton withdrew the application. Planning Board Chair Drew Stevens confirmed the withdrawal came around 1:30 p.m. The application was pulled "without prejudice," a legal term meaning it can be brought back later.

What residents objected to

The objections at Nottingham's meetings were specific, and they centered on the town's natural resources. Residents raised concerns about the amount of electricity a data center would draw from the grid, the water it would use for cooling, noise, air quality, and the effect on the Lamprey River watershed, a river system with a federal Wild and Scenic designation.

At a July planning board meeting attended by about 30 residents, Conrad Mansager, a local cattle farmer, tied the project to the region's dry conditions. "I just want the planning board to understand that the drought conditions have continued and probably gotten worse over the last 10 years and this would have a dramatic effect on that," he said.

New Hampshire Public Radio put the water question in plain numbers: large data centers can use up to 5 million gallons of water a day, comparable to a town of 50,000 people, against Nottingham's population of about 5,200. That gap is a large part of why the issue drew such a strong reaction in a small town.

At the September vote, support crossed party lines. NHPR reported that Denise and Jim Metcalf, who vote for opposite parties, both backed the moratorium. Voter Mike Kaplan told the station a data center could be "a huge drain on resources in town."

What the developer has said

Moulton has said publicly that he withdrew the plan to do more research, not to abandon it. "Before everybody jumps to conclusions, we want to address noise. We want to address water, we want to address air concerns," he said around the time of the withdrawal, adding that if those concerns could not be reasonably addressed, "we got to look and do something else."

He has also left the door open to returning. Speaking to the Portsmouth Herald, Moulton said, "If our research shows that it makes sense to do, I would reintroduce it, so that's still to be determined." Because the application was withdrawn without prejudice, nothing in the town's process prevents a future filing.

What a moratorium actually does

A moratorium is a temporary pause, not a permanent ban. Nottingham's ordinance holds off data center development for 12 months. Its stated purpose is to "protect the public health, safety and welfare of the residents of Nottingham and the surrounding communities, along with the regional watershed" while giving the town time to study the land use, environmental, infrastructure, and fiscal effects of data centers.

The planning board voted unanimously to advance the measure on July 3, 2026, before it went to the town-wide vote. Stevens, the board chair, has said the pause gives the town room to consider permanent zoning changes, which could include rules that would keep data centers out. In other words, the 12 months are meant to be used. What Nottingham decides to do with that time is the next chapter, and it is not yet written.

The wider New Hampshire picture

Nottingham's vote is part of a larger conversation in the state. As of the September vote, there were no hyperscale data centers, the industry term for the largest campuses, operating in New Hampshire. A feasibility study is underway in Bow to look at a hyperscale data center at a former coal plant site. And Governor Kelly Ayotte, a Republican running for re-election, has said she would propose a statewide moratorium on data centers in her next state budget.

The bottom line

Nottingham did not settle whether a data center will ever be built there. It bought itself a year. The 1,335 to 143 vote pauses new development while the town studies the water, power, and land questions that a 200,000-square-foot proposal put in front of it, and while it weighs whether to rewrite its zoning. The developer has said he may return. The state is weighing its own moratorium. For now, in Nottingham, the answer is: not yet, and not without a closer look.