APRS is calling on people to submit Objections to a 120MW hyperscale data centre near Chapelhall which has lodged an application as part of a group of data centres planned in the Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone. Together these projects would use a minimum of 500MW of power. This new application has a deadline for comments and objections of 3rd October.
APRS has made an interactive map of the developments to illustrate the cumulative impact of data centre developments on the area, which include four from HFD/Data Vita which would be more than 500MW in total and one from ILI which is 400MW. (click on map to visit it)
The four hyperscale data centre projects which are now live planning applications, including Auchtertool and Larbert, would use as much power as Torness nuclear power station, which is due to be decommissioned in 2028. These four data centres, all of which have been formally lodged since May 2026, would require up to 1.17GW of power demand [1]. Torness, for comparison, generates 1.19GW [2]. This total is also more than 25% of Scotland’s current winter peak power demand.
Kat Jones, APRS Director said: “It isn’t just environmental impacts that need to be considered, the Scottish Government needs to start looking at the risk of blackouts if all four data centres currently under consideration by local authorities get the go ahead. The power required by these four developments alone, adds up to that generated by Tornes nuclear power station, which is due for decommissioning in 2028.”
To add to this, these four proposals are just the tip of the iceberg, 16 further hyperscale data centres with 6 GW of power demand are in local authority planning portals and could submit a planning application at any time.
The AI Growth Zone follows an application last week for another hyperscale data centre project in Greenock, with a deadline to respond by 16th September. Neither of these developments has been required to do an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
Hannah Mary Goodlad, Minister for Public Finance, acted on 17th August 2026 [3] to overturn the decisions from local authority planners that the Auchtertool proposal, which is a live planning application, and the Hermiston/West Edinburgh proposal, still in pre-planning, would not be required to have an EIA. However, the Scottish Government did not set the same requirement for all the other hyperscale proposals across Scotland. There are five proposals that have not been required to carry out EIAs so far. Those are the most recent applications at Chapelhall and Greenock, plus two developments at Ravenscraig and one at Coldstream which are yet to submit planning applications.
It is not just environmental and community groups who believe that all hyperscale data centres should require an EIA, in July the DCA, the trade body for UK Data Centres, wrote a report saying that ‘The DCA also believes Environmental Impact Assessment should form a standard component of evaluation for all major data centre developments.’ [4]
Dr Kat Jones, Director of Action to Protect Rural Scotland, said:
“The Scottish Government urgently need to get a consistent approach to requiring EIAs for hyperscale data centres, the current approach is slapdash and communities and businesses need more certainty that impacts are being properly considered.
“We welcome the Scottish Government’s announcement that they would like a strategic approach to hyperscale data centres, but unless they get a move on and put a moratorium in place to allow them the time and space to do it, then it will be too late.”
Jennifer Thompson, who lives 50m from the Chapelhall site, said:
“I think that it is absolutely terrible that the data centre hasn’t done an Environmental Impact Assessment. Local people use that land, the kids play there and there’s a historic walled garden there. The data centre is going to tower over our homes and we are really worried about the impacts from the diesel generators and the noise.
“My kids are at the school and the nursery and we walk everywhere and play outside, so we really need to know that a proper assessment of the risks to our community are made. Loads of my neighbours don’t even know that it is happening as we weren’t told – it looks like only 19 addresses were notified. Something of this size and impact really needs to be properly assessed.”
Diane Davidson, Secretary of Woodhall, Faskine and Palacecraig Conservation Group, said:
“The AI growth zone seems to be made up of multiple applications for different developments including data centres and energy developments yet the environmental and planning impacts are still being considered application by application.
“This 120MW application is just the start of the applications we are expecting in the area. Locals can’t find out what is going on. We have written to the council and the UK and Scottish Governments to ask for transparency and got nowhere.”
Notes
[1] Hyperscale data centres which have submitted planning applications
| Hyperscale Data Centre | Stage of Planning | Capacity |
| Auchtertool | Planning Permission in Principle | 600MW |
| Larbert | Full Planning Application | 300MW |
| Chapelhall DV4 | Planning Permission in Principle | 120MW |
| Greenock | Planning Permission in Principle | 150MW |
| TOTAL | 1170MW | |
| Edinburgh, Gyle | Planning Permission in Principle Called in by the Scottish Government | 213MW |
To see all the Data Centres in the Planning system (planning and pre-planning) please see the Data Centre Map Table
2. See EDF’s information about Torness:
https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/power-stations/torness
3. See:
https://www.gov.scot/news/data-centre-planning-direction
4. See: https://www.dcauk.org/
Other Notes on Energy Demand from data Centres
At the end of July Ofgem, the GB energy markets regulator, admitted in a consultation document that “between November 2024 and June 2025, contracted demand in the connection queue increased from 41 GW to 125 GW. Of this, around 73 GW are data centres”. They also note that over 93% of that figure are for data centres over 100MW [1]. Their press release quoted a figure of ‘at least 80GW’. This had grown significantly since Ofgem’s previous consultation in February 2026, which put demand from data centres at 50MW.
Contracted demand is the electricity demand that developers have received connection offers for, and signed agreements for, but which is not yet operational. And it seems that a very large proportion of these projects are ready to go ahead. A February 2026 Ofgem consultation stated that NESO’s Demand Queue Call for Input (CFI) ‘identified around 140 (50 GW) data centres, the majority of which are likely to receive a Gate 2 offer. 71 (around 20GW) data centres reported they have achieved financial commitment with Final Investment Decision (FID), indicating a significant volume of mature data centre projects in the demand queue’.
To put this in context, the peak demand of Great Britain in 2025 was 45.8GW, which was hit on 9 January 2025, and 2025 saw an average demand over the year of 31.7 GW (weekdays) and 28.8GW (weekends). So the demand that has been already contracted to data centres is 1.5 times peak demand and is more than twice national average power demand.