This application is at the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) scoping stage. They submitted an EIA Scoping report in February 2026 and are waiting on a decision from North Ayrshire Council. It is coming from Eneus Energy Limited and is on Grade 3 agricultural land just north of West Kilbride and next to Hunterston Power Station. The developers do not say the capacity and energy use of the development, but given the scale (the buildings alone will cover 30 hectares) it will be a very large hyperscale site of at least 500MW.
The whole site is 88.16 hectares, and the development ‘will be a ‘large industrial campus comprising multiple data centre buildings (total footprint not exceeding 300,000m2) each up to 35m tall.’1 We are concerned that there is no reference at all to energy use in the EIA Report. Which is extremely relevant for the Environmental Impact of a data centre. We have written to the council to ask them what the energy demand of the data centre will be.
The site boundary is meters from 900 year-old Hunter Castle, seat of the Hunter Clan. Their website says that the castle is the oldest castle in Scotland still owned by the family which built it.
A 450MW Battery Storage System has planning permission for an overlapping site
Scottish Enterprise produced a shortlist of sites for data centres in Scotland and this included the old coal yards, a brownfield site around a kilometre north of this site. Given the proximity of a preferred site so close, this agricultural land so close to a Grade 1 listed building and historic landscape should not be considered appropriate for a hyperscale data centre.
How to get involved…
Join the Facebook Group here.
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Sign the petition
Protect Hunterston’s Coast, Countryside and Heritage: Reject the Hyperscale Data centre.
Join the WhatsApp Group to become involved in opposing this development HERE
Planning Application information
The application is at the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) scoping stage. As of May 5th North Ayrshire Council have yet to make a decision on whether it requires an EIA
News related to Hunterston Development
This weekend members of Clan Hunter from all over the world will be gathering at Hunterston Castle. It is a 900 year old tower which is the oldest castle in Scotland still owned by the family who built it. Hunterston Estate have plans to build a hyperscale AI data centre only metres from the castle on green fields and locals are protesting the clan gathering this weekend.
Communities campaigning against hyperscale AI data centres gathered outside Holyrood (Wednesday 24th June) ahead of Climate and Rural Affairs Parliamentary
Today APRS and ERCS wrote to the Planning Minister Ivan McKee to express concern about the energy demands of data centres coming through Scotland’s planning system. They called for a pause on all planning applications until a more strategic approach can be made and strict environmental standards are defined for data centres.
Backup generation
Backup generation will run on 2.4 MW generators according to the EIA report and will hold fuel to run for 48 hours. They say it will use ‘clean fuel’ but the suggested fuel is bio-diesel and this has roughly the same particulate emissions as diesel. It does not say how many of these generators it will require. But from the size of the site we estimate it will be at least 500MW.
The report says “The generators will need monthly testing during the operational phase, this will typically involve one five-minute test per month with the exception of once per year which will require each generator be run for one hour. The tests will be sequenced to avoid more than one in test operation at time.”
It gives the testing and emergency scenarios as:
- Testing Scenario 1 – each generator unit tested separately for 5 minutes every month at 75% load, i.e. 1 hour per generator per year;
- Testing Scenario 2 – each generator unit tested separately for 1 hour, once per year;
- Emergency Scenario 1* – all generators operating at 100% load for 48 hours per year.
- Emergency Scenario 2 – all generators operating at 100% load for 72 hours per year.
*Emergency scenario 1 has been devised based on the fuel capacity of the Proposed Development.
Impacts on local nature sites
From Nature Scot consultation response on scoping report:
Southannan Sands SSSI is designated for its sandflats, and is approximately 200 m from the
proposed site. This feature was last assessed as being in favourable condition, but is likely to be
vulnerable to pollution.
More maps – drawn by APRS to show on OS map and satellite view
Local electricity generation
The EIA scoping reports says that local renewable generation does not fully meet total local consumption (figures below) it does not give the energy demand of the hyperscale data centre itself
- Department for Energy Security & Net Zero regional statistics (2024) report 209.2 MW of installed renewable capacity in North Ayrshire in 2024 (up ~16% from 2023), generating 442,849 MWh in 2024.
- Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) consumption data (2023) estimate total annual electricity consumption in North Ayrshire at 570,700 MWh (206,900 MWh domestic; 363,800 MWh non-domestic), indicating local renewable generation does not fully meet total local consumption; UK energy price volatility is
evident in recent indices.
- according to the EIA Scoping request ↩︎
BESS Planning
A 450MW BESS got planning permission in 2022 and is currently under construction. This BESS should evidently never been permitted on this large area of agricultural land so close to the castle and designed landscapes given the large quantities of brownfield land extremely close by.
All the documents are on the ECU planning portal
Alternative brownfield site nearby
The north of the Hunterston site is only 200m from a huge brownfield site which was once a massive coal yard. This site was proposed as one of twelve sites in Scotland shortlisted by Scottish Enterprise to attract data centres. You can read the report below.
Ownership of the land
Due to various land sales, leases and compulsory purchases over the years the land ownership at Hunterston is a bit opaque. We received the following infomation from an email to Savills, the Hunterston Estate’s factors:
From Savills 11 May 2026
“By way of context, Hunterston Castle sits within the Hunterston Estate and is part of it. The Kennedy Cochrane Patrick family has been committed to the estate’s stewardship for generations, and that commitment encompasses both protecting the natural environment — including public footpaths which local people and visitors enjoy, and which will continue to be maintained — and planning responsibly for the estate’s long-term future. This responsibility includes identifying potential developments that can raise income to support the restoration and upkeep of historically important, but ageing, buildings on the estate, including Hunterston Castle and Hunterston House.
“The Hunterston area has a long and significant industrial heritage, and the land around the estate has been identified at both local and national planning level as appropriate for new industry. As you will be aware the project site is designated as Marketable Employment Land in North Ayrshire Council’s Local Development Plan. At the national level, the Scottish Government’s National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) identifies the wider Hunterston area as a Strategic Asset for economic development, and specifically encourages the development of green data centres across Scotland. The estate’s proximity to major renewable energy infrastructure makes it a strong fit with these policy objectives.
“Any development will be carefully planned. It will be directed to land of lower agricultural grade, with sustainable farming continuing on other parts of the estate, and buildings will be designed to respect the local landscape.”
I asked a further question about the land ownership:
“We are aware that there are some complex ownership and management arrangements for the land round Hunterston castle due to previous compulsory purchases due to the power station. Could you let me know who is the owner of the land intended for the data centre. We believe it to be EDF, but note there has been a recent land sale in the vicinity. And also the intended power capacity of the data centre – as this wasn’t on the EIA scoping.Power capacity is absolutely vital information in judging the environmental impact of a data centre and so it was surprising that this was left off. We have also contacted the local authority to ask for information about this.”
and Savills replied:
“I confirm the site is owned by Ladyland Ltd a private trust for the benefit of the family beneficiaries.”
The website hunterstoncastle.uk also has some information about landownership: