Facebook parent company Meta has agreed to cancel plans to develop a massive data centre near the Flevoland town of Zeewolde, three months after putting the plan on hold because of public opposition.

Meta now says there is no ‘good match’ between the data centre and the location and that it had decided the construction project was ‘not the right investment’.

The dispute over the local council’s green light for the massive data centre took a new twist in the March local elections when a political party opposing the project won an absolute majority in the local election.

The cabinet also refused to approve the sale of part of the location.

Zeewolde council had voted to amend the zoning plan at the end of December, clearing the way for the data centre to be built.

The data centre, or hyperscale, was controversial for several reasons, not least of which that it is being build on agricultural land. There was also concern about the massive amount of energy needed to power the centre – the equivalent of a small city of 460,000 people.