A roundup of the happenings from Wednesday 16th September, celebrating the announcement that all data centres over 50MW will now be required to do Environmental Impact Assessments, and that the Parliament and Scottish Ministers voted to pause planning decisions until planning guidance is produced – Director Kat Jones explains and gives some thoughts on what comes next.
I should have written this the evening of the vote in the Parliament on Wednesday – but I needed to hot-foot it to a giant sports hall in Larbert for the second half of the pre-determination hearing, where a capacity crowd watched the planning committee hear evidence from community members, supporters and others. I arrived just a few minutes before my name was called to speak, and also had the privilege to hear powerful testimony from local people (watch the hearing and read extracts from speeches)
So here is my very tardy roundup of the “landmark day”, as APRS was quoted as saying in the press. It has grown into quite the essay – but it has some very key thoughts in, especially at the end. This was, indeed, a highly significant win for the community campaigns and for the APRS campaign, despite the erroneous reporting in some places that nothing had changed
This couldn’t be further from the truth
What we’ve been asking for
We have been asking for a moratorium (definition: temporary suspension – or pause – in an activity) on planning decisions for hyperscale data centres since we wrote to the Scottish Government in a joint letter with Environmental Rights Centre Scotland (ERCS) in December 2025.
In this letter we asked for a pause “while the Scottish Government carries out the following steps to ensure that a strategic approach is taken to data centre developments which minimises their adverse effects on the environment, the achievement of national climate targets and secure and affordable electricity supply for communities”
These three steps were:
- Publish an analysis of the impact of data centres, including cumulative impact, on Scotland’s grid, energy supplies, energy prices and climate targets
- Produce planning guidance on hyperscale data centres
- Ensure all hyperscale data centres are required to do an EIA
Our asks have remained more of less the same since December.
Let’s look at where we are since Wednesday….
Action on Environmental Impact Assessments
This is a particular success and thank you to all 508 of you who responded to our call to email MSPs. This was incredibly effective. We launched the e-action on 9th September to write to MSPs and ask them to email the Minister to request she issue a Planning Direction to demand all hyperscale data centres require an EIA, and by 16th September at 11am the Minister had done just that!
So far in this campaign we have always suggested that, when people write to their MSPs they should make their case in their own words, as this is the most effective way of communicating, but in this case it was both urgent and a technical ask related to planning law so we used a more automatic e-action. We thank MSPs and the Minister for heeding these calls, which added yet more voices to many months of similar requests.
A pause on decisions until planning guidance is produced
Secondly the Scottish Greens tabled a motion for debate to call for “the introduction of a moratorium on planning applications for new hyperscale data centres until a new strategy and updated planning guidance is produced, which takes into account the cumulative impacts on energy demand and the environment”
Although the motion as amended that was finally agreed deleted the Green’s original words, it contained wording (from the Labour amendment) that had the same effect supporting a pause in planning decisions on hyperscale data centres until planning guidance is produced.
What will this guidance contain?
The wording in the motion itself said the Government should “issue national planning guidance, alongside robust environmental standards and assessments, to inform national and local decision-making on current and potential hyperscale data centre planning applications; and that such guidance must provide clarity on spatial, community and social impacts of any such developments and that decisions must be based on community consent”
This obviously contains many elements that we have been calling for but we need to ensure civil society is involved in both the scope and the content of the guidance that is produced – as we need to see cumulative impacts, climate impacts, a proper strategy, electricity grid and prices impacts in there. But most importantly we need to assess whether Scotland actually needs these vast hyperscale AI data centres – they need to make the case that we need these and, then where they should go
Strategic and Spatial approach?
The day after the debate, in General Questions on 17th September, the Minister Hannah Mary Goodlad said the Government “will be coming back by the end of the year with guidelines—spatial and environmental, and on energy and heat use”. Though she seemed to sidestep a follow-up question on cumulative impact
The Programme for Government also had a reference for a strategic approach for data centres that will be done in 2026-27. We do not believe this was strong enough, they need to assess the need-case for hyperscale AI data centres, as it is the scale of these sites and the lack of benefit they bring to Scotland which is the issue that needs to be tackled in this strategic approach.
Timescale
The end of the year is not a timescale that is achievable if the Government are going to properly involve stakeholders including communities and the public in the discussions. They also cannot pre-empt their own strategic approach proposed in the Programme for Government, or the report from the Climate Action committee of the Parliament who are conducting an inquiry into hyperscale AI data centres.
They will also need to undertake a 12 week public consultation on any strategy and guidance they produce – so this consultation will need to come after the Christmas date the Scottish Government wishes to deliver the guidance, with the moratorium staying in place until that guidance is published – as the motion as amended says.
We believe that, to do this work properly, the Government will need the full year proposed in the Labour amendment, and a moratorium to match.
So how strong was the vote on Wednesday?
No, the vote was not binding, and Yes, the Government did not make it at all clear exactly how they intend to ensure that no decisions are made, or even what their policy actually is, but the Government supported the Labour amendment, containing the pause, and so we do expect them to stick to it, and we will hold them to it.
The fact that the pause in planning decisions was reported across a huge swathe of media – with front pages on the Scotsman and the National, and a significant piece in the Guardian, (even though, disappointingly, many papers carried headline that the moratorium had failed, only much further down the article acknowledging there had been a pause) makes it very difficult to ignore that this has happened.
Also, no-one could have failed to notice that a very significant movement has grown up around the demands for a moratorium, starting with local community campaign groups, but extending to campaigners concerned about tech justice, the impacts of AI and those coming from an environmental and climate perspective, as well as NGOs and groups such as Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, the civil society coalition working on climate, and these people and groups are not going away anytime soon. There will be a LOT of eyes on what the Scottish Government does next.
And the decisions of Wednesday are already having effect. On Wednesday morning four data centres with combined energy demand the same as that of Torness nuclear power station, were under active consideration by councils. Of those four applications Greenock and Chapelhall were effectively paused by the EIA announcement in the morning, as their developers will need to go back to the drawing board to produce one (Auchtertool had already been required to do an EIA by a previous intervention from Scottish Government).
And so only Larbert remains – but a pause in decisions will cover this one. In the sports hall hearing at Larbert the evening after the decision, the developers said that they acknowledged the government’s intentions to pause decision making and they would work with the guidance when it comes.
What Next?
There are many reasons to be cautious – the new programme for government is extremely focused on economic growth and AI is portrayed as key. The Minister has been vague in answering questions about what will be covered in the guidance such as cumulative impacts and looking at how much capacity, if any, of hyperscale AI data centres Scotland needs. We also need to ensure that the Government will properly consult the public and civil society on the plans.
So here are some things we can do…
- We need to push home the importance of involving communities and the public in the conversation about hyperscale AI data centres. Those who have been involved in this campaign will not accept being excluded from this decision making. We can all ask our MSPs to ensure that there is an exemplary level of engagement with civil society, the public and with the experts and academics who have the information, in creating the guidance and strategy that have been promised. They can also make it clear that they expect there to be the standard 12 week public consultation on any strategy or guidance produced.
- Get involved in your Local Development Plan, we have information on LDPs on our website and many local authorities are consulting on these. It is important that you check what is proposed regarding data centres. Focused local place plans can also be useful. We will produce more information on this when we can
- There are several committees interested in the issue of Hyperscale data centres – watch out for the Climate Action committee enquiry and follow it – there will be lots of opportunities for gleaning information and insights.
- Local Elections – these are coming up in May, and they will act to focus the mind of politicians over coming months, especially local ones, as the Government carry out the steps they need to in order to deliver what they voted for in the motion.
- Keep campaigning locally raising awareness, building alliances and learning about the proposals.
- AND watch this space for exciting news coming….
Last Word
However we still have a power of work to do. The job for us is to keep going, keep communicating, keep getting involved, making sure our voices are heard by the government in this next period.
In the meantime the rest of the world will know that Scotland won’t put up with hyperscale AI data centres being built in her countryside, and in her communities. The campaign has been in international, tech and finance media including Bloomberg, FT, and, this week (due to the King hosting a summit including AI bosses and the adviser to the Pope at Dumfries House in Ayrshire) we went truly global.
This was thanks to the efforts of Lisa Beacham of the Hurlford campaign, Ros Laughland of the Hunterston campaign – and a sand artist who showed up on spec to help and saved the day. They wrote ‘AI? – eh NAW!’ in the sand at Prestwick beach to welcome the private jets flying in for the meeting. Their artistic masterpiece produced in rain and near gale-force winds made it to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and countless other outlets. Had the news of the moratorium/pause that had been voted on the day before the summit not been so roundly replaced in the press by headlines of ‘defeat of moratorium vote’, that information would have been there alongside the sand art sending an even clearer message that Scotland isn’t up for having hyperscale AI data centres imposed on us.
There is now no going back – communities local to proposed hyperscale data centres are now reluctant experts on the planning system and the technical requirements of AI data centres, people and politicians from all over Scotland are now aware of the issue, and the voices of young people, concerned about the impact of AI on their futures, are growing in strength. The scrutiny on the Government in these next few months will be intense.
Instead of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, let’s celebrate what we won on Wednesday.
But also let’s acknowledge that this is far from over – it’s the start of the second half.
[1] The key wording is:
“[The Scottish Parliament] calls on the Scottish Government to report back to Parliament on the development of national planning guidance by the end of the current calendar year and to publish this guidance in full within 12 months, and believes that no decisions on planning or consenting in relation to such applications should be made until this has been completed.”
Thank you to all who made this happen
So this was an incredible day and we thank all our supporters who have contributed to it and to the MSPs who helped make this happen and have raised this important issue – we know that you will be there to hold the Government to account on what they did on Wednesday.
We thank the Greens for bringing the debate and Labour for bringing the key amendment, and we thank all the MSPs who supported it. We also thank the Government for seeing the urgency of this situation and supporting the amendment.
The Agreed wording
That the Parliament believes new hyper-scale data centres in Scotland will only be approved where they have met robust environmental impact assessments, which will take account of any impact on the amenity of any neighbouring communities;
welcomes the Scottish Government’s commitment to the swift creation of national planning and spatial guidance by the end of the year for the determination of conditions, under which data centre development should be permitted;
believes that, in order to gain planning approval, any proposals for data centres should demonstrate how they would minimise emissions for their energy usage and not impact on water usage and how community wealth benefit will be built in to the business case;
notes that best practice for the creation of data centres includes steps to support decarbonisation and to recycle waste heat for wider community use;
recognises the increased utilisation of AI and further development of such technology, and calls for strong domestic regulation of and international collaboration on the development and use of AI systems to ensure its safe and ethical use, and to address the scale and seriousness of potential threats the use of AI may pose now and in the future.
believes that Scotland has great strengths in data science and energy, and as such, a clear industrial strategy is required to maximise the economic benefits of AI data centre developments, including jobs and wages;
calls on the Scottish Government to bring forward a clear definition of what constitutes a hyperscale data centre and to issue national planning guidance, alongside robust environmental standards and assessments, to inform national and local decision-making on current and potential hyperscale data centre planning applications;
notes that such guidance must provide clarity on spatial, community and social impacts of any such developments and that decisions must be based on community consent;
agrees that consideration must be given to implementing community benefit schemes and adjusting the non-domestic rates regime or other tax measures to ensure that economic benefits are accrued by communities in which such data centres are sited;
calls on the Scottish Government to report back to Parliament on the development of national planning guidance by the end of the current calendar year and to publish this guidance in full within 12 months, and believes that no decisions on planning or consenting in relation to such applications should be made until this has been completed.“