Over the past few months, I have received a number of enquiries around expansion of data centres in East Lothian.
At the moment, there are three applications in East Lothian, either at pre-application or application stage . I have engaged with all three applicants at this stage and I will continue to do so moving forward.
The issue has been raised in the Scottish Parliament, with a call for a moratorium on all new data centres. The Scottish Government is considering issuing national planning guidance on the matter.
Each local authority decides on whether to consent applications or not. Last Sunday, the Scottish National Party (SNP)’s national council passed a motion to freeze all new data centres in Scotland. That motion has been sent to the Scottish Government to consider.
It could apply to all data centre projects that have not yet received planning permission – although its exact implementation is up to the Scottish Government to decide.
Lesley Backhouse, a local councillor from one of the constituencies that put forward the motion, said that Scotland’s current data centre plans amounted to “overdevelopment” and were “intrusive and not keeping with the local environment”.
The move emerged as national newspapers revealed that developers and the UK government misrepresented the technical feasibility of a massive data centre hub in Scotland in the face of community fears that their land would be subsumed by the development, and promised jobs and investments would never materialise.
This site, in Lanarkshire, was to be an “AI growth zone”, a key element of the government’s strategy to build national AI infrastructure in rural areas of Britain.
The SNP resolution suggests that the number of massive data centres planned in Scotland could overwhelm its renewables capacity. The Scottish Government will consider the resolution.
There are 24'hyperscale' data centre projects in various stages of planning in Scotland. Combined, they would use more than one-and-a-half times the power Scotland uses at peak demand.
Transparency, energy and water usage are all key factors for local authorities to consider. I would be keen to hear your views on data centres . Contact me at Paul.McLennan.Msp@parliament.scot
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