When asked during General Parliamentary Questions on 17 September about plans to produce planning and environmental guidance for artificial intelligence data centres, the Minister for Public Finance, Hannah Mary Goodlad, said: “Yesterday, I committed to ensuring that both communities and business have confidence. I do not want to kick the can down the road on this.”
The Minister for Public Finance appeared to be quite adamant that the Scottish Government want to move quickly, before the end of the year, on issuing updated planning guidance and a spatial framework which considers the impact on the environment, energy and heat use for hyperscale data centres across Scotland. However concerns remain over how thorough the Scottish Government will be with such an imposed tight timeframe.
You can read the parliamentary question report HERE. Watch the session below beginning with a General Question from Graham Simpson MSP, followed by Supplementary Questions from Mark Simpson MSP, Alan Brown MSP and Julie MacDougall MSP.