Data Centre Watch Updated 23 October 2026, 17:16 UTC
Data Centre Watch
The local fight over one field is one row in a national rush. This is a rolling, fully sourced record of what changed — the schemes, the planning decisions, the power and water, and the wider world picture.
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Latest
59 entries matching · showing 31–45
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Drax's AI Growth Zone bid rejected — but the 100MW scheme continues
The government dropped the Drax / University of York bid for an AI Growth Zone, removing a route to national support. Drax says its separate first-phase ~100MW data centre is still being prepared for submission. New analysis estimates the plant would emit more CO₂ a year than all flights from Gatwick Airport.
Why it matters: Losing a Growth Zone bid isn't a planning refusal — but it strips a signal investors watch.
Source: Planning Geek / Land & Climate Review [C]
Changes (2)
- — Added the emissions finding: the planned data centre would emit more CO₂ a year than all flights from Gatwick.
- — First filed.
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Exeter College's £900m 'EXOq' campus heads to a decision
A £900m data centre and innovation campus beside Oxford Parkway, funded by Exeter College, goes to Cherwell District Council in early November — pitched for AI and quantum research on the Oxford–Cambridge growth corridor. The decision awaits the council's independent golf-need report, the third such survey attached to the application.
Why it matters: Universities and colleges are becoming data-centre backers, on the government's 'Europe's Silicon Valley' corridor.
Source: Cherwell [C]
Changes (2)
- — Decision now expected in early November, after the council's independent golf-need report.
- — First filed.
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Menai Strait campus draws 22,500-signature petition
Gwelyfenai's ~41-hectare campus on the former Ferodo site between Caernarfon and Y Felinheli — up to five buildings with a proposed 450MW grid connection — now faces a 22,500+ signature petition and a protest of ~300 people on 10 Oct. Objectors cite scale, SSSI/SAC wildlife, water and the loss of agricultural land; the developer points to ~200 permanent jobs and closed-loop cooling. On 13 Oct the Welsh Government confirmed it has received a request to call the application in; Cyngor Gwynedd says it has had no direction and will still determine it unless ministers intervene.
Why it matters: The same questions — scale, water, wildlife, and how many lasting local jobs — on the shore of a protected strait.
Source: Bylines Cymru / North Wales Live [C]
Changes (3)
- — Added the request for the Welsh Government to call the application in.
- — Petition updated to 22,500+; added the ~41ha site area and the proposed 450MW grid connection.
- — First filed.
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The UK's AI data-centre energy council has been left unconvened
The council set up to coordinate electricity for AI data centres has not met under the new Downing Street leadership, leaving developers and investors without a clear route to raise grid concerns. Officials are said to favour localised planning over a dedicated coordination body.
Why it matters: The one body meant to join up power and compute for AI has gone quiet — so who decides where the gigawatts go?
Source: Distilled Post [C]
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SNP moves to freeze new datacentres in Scotland
An SNP national council motion calls for a moratorium on all new datacentres in Scotland, potentially covering projects without planning permission. It says the 24 hyperscale schemes in planning would together use more than one-and-a-half times Scotland's peak power demand.
Why it matters: The country positioned as the UK's AI powerhouse is debating hitting pause — the campaign's 'assess it first' argument, at national scale.
Source: DailySynapse [C]
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Lanarkshire AI growth zone questioned over land and jobs
Residents near Newarthill and Airdrie are questioning the promised benefits of the CoreWeave/DataVita zone: 1GW needs ~44 km² of nearby land by conservative estimates, but current holdings appear to be under a tenth of that, and Action to Protect Rural Scotland says the 3,400-job figure could be 'a hundred times' too high.
Why it matters: The gap between headline jobs/land claims and what is actually secured — the campaign's recurring question.
Source: DailySynapse [C]
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Leeds approves Microsoft's £4bn Skelton Grange campus — against a 44,000-signature petition
Leeds City Council granted permission for Microsoft's complex on the former Skelton Grange power station (three data halls plus a warehouse) despite a petition of more than 44,000 signatures; the West Yorkshire Mayor defends it on economic grounds while the Green group raises water and energy concerns.
Why it matters: A brownfield site near renewables — the profile campaigners say they want — was still contested. Consent and consent-to-the-locals are different things.
Source: Armason weekly [C]
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Green Party: strip data centres of automatic 'critical infrastructure' status
The Green Party wants data centres to lose their automatic Critical National Infrastructure classification, with tighter planning rules, full community consultation, brownfield-first siting near renewables, and audited annual water and electricity figures. CPRE adds that 100+ schemes are in the pipeline with no government body tracking them.
Why it matters: The 'national need' that overrides local plans is now being challenged at the level of the label itself.
Source: Armason weekly [C]
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Regen: a 1GW gas data centre could emit up to 5.7 Mt CO₂ a year
Regen estimates a 1GW gas-fired data centre could emit 2.7–5.7 million tonnes of CO₂ a year, and that of 152 UK applications only 13% mention on-site generation and 9% state a connection type. It calls for mandatory power disclosure in applications and a moratorium on gas-primary schemes.
Why it matters: The disclosure gap, in numbers — most applications don't say how they'll be powered, in a country promising net zero.
Source: Armason weekly [C]
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The UK's data-centre pipeline: 173 projects, 14.6GW against ~1.6GW existing
Analysis puts the UK pipeline at 173 committed projects totalling ~14.6GW of planned capacity, versus ~1.6GW of existing capacity — a tenfold gap. It also cites UK power costs at roughly four times US levels (an estimated £226m a year for a 100MW site) and ~1.9bn litres of English data-centre water use a year that operators aren't required to report.
Why it matters: The scale of what's proposed, the price of power, and the water nobody has to disclose — in three numbers.
Source: Servnet / Computer Weekly [C]
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A UK firm pitches 'election-grade' data to defeat planning opposition
Amphio Technologies, a US-funded UK company incorporated in August 2026, is offering developers mass public-opinion measurement 'modelled down to individual neighbourhoods' — election-style intelligence aimed at defeating data-centre and infrastructure opposition. Founder James Yucel (previously real-estate private equity, the Onward think tank and Focaldata) points to opposition groups doubling to 833 across 49 US states in early 2026 and a May 2026 Gallup poll in which 71% opposed a data centre near their home.
Why it matters: The counter-offensive: developers are buying the same machinery that wins elections — worth knowing that some planning arguments are being engineered, not just made.
Source: Green Street News / Amphio [C]
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Campaigners urge binding resource limits for Scotland's data centres
The Foundation for Gaia wrote to the Scottish Government arguing individual decisions cannot address cumulative impacts — it counts 24 major proposals (~6GW) in or near the planning system — and calling for binding limits, mandatory audited water/power/emissions reporting, no drinking water for cooling, and collective assessment by grid connection, catchment and council area.
Why it matters: The 'assess the whole, not the parts' argument — the same gap we push on water, put to a national government.
Source: Envirotec / Foundation for Gaia [C]
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Cato's 600MW campus meets a 1,000-year-old castle
Remains of Hallyards Castle sit on land earmarked for ILI Energy's 600MW Cato data centre. Historic Environment Scotland declined a new designation because the application is already in train, and a full Environmental Impact Assessment has been directed.
Why it matters: Heritage and farmland now sit alongside the climate and grid questions — the same collision, again.
Source: DataCentral [V]
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Fawley Waterside: a 1.5M sq ft campus with data centres on a former power station
On the former Fawley Power Station site near Southampton, Fawley Waterside is proposing a 1.5M sq ft industrial and commercial campus combining energy, digital, maritime and commercial uses — with data centres and advanced computing among the potential digital occupants.
Why it matters: Another retired power station pitched as a home for compute — the land-and-grid logic, again.
Source: Bisnow [C]
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Redhill data centre approved on condition it tries to heat nearby homes
Reigate & Banstead approved Castleforge/Galaxy's two-storey data centre at Foxboro Business Park only on condition (25) that a waste-heat export feasibility study for the adjacent Park 25 heat network is done before construction — and, if viable, connected from first operation. The study is due this November. Councillors pushed to strengthen the condition because the current one stops short of a guaranteed commitment.
Why it matters: A real planning test of whether waste heat goes to homes — not just a promise in a brochure.
Source: Inside Housing / Reigate & Banstead [C]
Watchlist — what lands next
| What | State | When |
|---|---|---|
| Data-centre National Policy Statement (NPS) | Still unpublished; projects already being directed into the NSIP regime without it. | Expected 'shortly after' the Jan 2026 regulations |
| Ofgem 'Curate' data-centre connection reform | Consultation closed 17 Sep 2026; decision pending — commitment fee £237,500–£712,500/MW. | Decision later in 2026 |
| Scotland — hyperscale planning guidance | Parliament agreed no decisions on hyperscale applications until guidance is published. | Guidance expected by December 2026 |
| Draft London Plan — data-centre policy GLE3 | Consultation closed 15 October 2026; responses under consideration. | Next draft / adoption pending |
| National Scheme of Delegation for planning functions (SI 2026/854) | Standardises which applications go to officers vs committee; non-compliant committee decisions open to judicial review. | In force 31 October 2026 |
| EU data-centre standards and rating scheme | Commission has adopted a data-centre sustainability rating scheme; consultation on minimum performance standards remains open. | Consultation closes 14 December 2026 |
| Environmental Audit Committee report (HC 22) | Inquiry 'Risks and opportunities to the sustainability of data centres in the UK'; report + government response due. | Awaiting publication |
| Three Rivers Local Plan examination | Plan submitted; examination in H1 2027, adoption targeted Sep 2027. | Submission 30 November 2026 |
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Fully sourced, no invented numbers
Every entry names its source and how it is known — verified, a designated claim, our calculation, or a gap. Where a claim is contested, we say so. See all reports & explainers →