This weekend members of Clan Hunter from all over the world are gathering at Hunterston Castle. It is a 900 year old Peel 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.
You can read more information about the proposed data centre here:
Quotes from local people
This story was covered in the following papers
- The National Three-day protest against AI data centre planned for 900-year-old Scottish estate
- The Herald Scottish clan urged to ‘defend’ 900-year-old castle from data centre
- The Telegraph – a note in this article: Data Centre Projects face crackdown to free up grid
Laura Roberts, local resident and one of the organisers of the protest said:
“This weekend hundreds of people from Clan Hunter are assembling at Hunterston castle, a 900 year old peel tower and the oldest castle in Scotland still owned by the family who built it. We are here to raise awareness to the Clan members, who have gathered from across the world, of the threat to this special place. Unbelievably, Hunterston Estate are planning to build a huge hyperscale AI data centre right on the doorstep of the castle, the boundary is only 50m away. We are calling on the members of Clan Hunter to rise in defense of this castle as they have many times in the past when it has been under threat
“Our protest sends a clear message to North Ayrshire Council, Eneus and the Hunterston Estate: we will not stand by and watch nearly 84 hectares of our precious coastal and agricultural land be turned into a towering, 35-metre-high industrial complex. We are not against progress, but we refuse to be kept in the dark about the massive energy and environmental costs of these speculative hyperscale data centres. We are standing up to protect our heritage, our environment, and our community’s future.”
Local resident, Ros Lauchland said
“Local people are horrified at the desecration of the area, particularly as West Kilbride and Fairlie have had a large share of industrial development already, including Clydeport, the ore terminal, and coal yard resulting in noise and atmospheric pollution. The nuclear power stations are being decommissioned but this will take decades and the land will be useless. We will not stand by and let our beautiful countryside be destroyed again, especially not for an AI data centre. It is local people who have to live with the pollution and the consequences.”
Notes:
This site is only 200m from a brownfield site on the Coal yards at Hunterston which was one of ten priority sites for data centres identified in a report by Scottish Enterprise but this is on fields.
More info on the proposals are here: https://aprs.scot/hunterston-data-centre/
Information on the protest is on the Reject Hunterston AI Data Centre Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DbJk3E3jmxr/?igsh=M3ZidXFibzV4Y3Bx
Local Resident Ros Lauchland gives some of the background to the site and why they are fighting the proposals for the hyperscale AI data centre
The Hunter family originated from Norman French immigrants whose occupation was hunting, hence the name. Politically astute through the centuries, they hung on to the lands of Hunterston Estate, with its medieval castle and a later addition of a grand, though rather ugly, house. When some of their land was taken by compulsory purchase for industrial development in the seventies, the owners at the time, Neil and Sonia Kennedy Cochran Patrick, formerly of Ladyland House in Kilbirnie, became tax exiles in Andorra. Land had already been sold in the sixties for the nuclear power stations. Of the remaining land, agricultural use continues, although with much of the topsoil having been sold off, the land is less productive.
Hunting in the 21st century is no longer for game, it is for the latest way to earn revenue from a dwindling asset, and these days that seems to be the rush to build a hyperscale AI data centre.
Savilles, the estate factor, has a specialist department for this, and the proximity to an important electrical node makes Hunterston an ideal site.
But not for local people.
The Estate is very important to the people of the area, many of whom have family connections to estate workers going back to 1919.
The BESS which is being built on a previously green field site was met with disappointment and dismay locally. It bypassed local planning because larhe energy infrastructure is decided by the Scottish Government. Many locals knew nothing about it until construction was well under way. Regular users of the U35 cycle path and leisure route stayed away as the narrow road became choked with construction traffic. The tenants in the cottages on the Estate were evicted, after being told they would be able to remain.
Now the field on the opposite side of the cycle path is being proposed as a data centre site of 500mw, with the likelihood of one gigawatt in future. Almost 200 acres of fields, woodland, wetland, and watercourses would be lost. Buildings 35 metres high would cover thirty acres.
Local people are horrified at the desecration of the area, particularly as West Kilbride and Fairlie have had a large share of industrial development already, including Clydeport, ore terminal, and coal yard resulting in noise and atmospheric pollution. The nuclear power stations are being decommissioned but this will take decades and the land will be useless.
The proposed site was designated as ‘marketable employment land’ more than fifty years ago. This was at a time when our needs were different. Climate change was not a concern, food shortages were not on the public’s radar, the world was more stable politically. Things have changed.
