Dear Hannah Mary Goodlad, Minister for Public Finance
cc Chief Planner
It has come to our attention that the Greenock proposed data centre on the IBM site has put in an application for planning permission in principle – Planning Reference 26/0136/IC . As far as I can see from the documents there is no information on the capacity of the development but, the size of the building (80,000m2) indicates that this will certainly be a lot larger than 50MW and probably between 200-300MW. I have written to the local authority to alert them to the probable size of this development as they may not have realised that his would be reportable to the Scottish Government under the Planning Direction issued on 18th August.
This situation illustrates the issue with developers submitting Planning Permission in Principle applications for hyperscale data centres. It seems to be being used, in this case, and the case of the Auchtertool application, to obscure some of the elements of the development which makes it the most damaging. In this case it is the power demand, which also means that there cannot be adequate assessment of air pollution, noise, water and other impacts. In the case of Auchtertool they have been very vague about diesel generators, among many other things, saying they may not use them, or that they would have 20 generators using HVO, however their architectural plans show over 200 generators.
I also note that there is no EIA screening online for the Greenock project, however, the planning statement (p4) says:”An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Screening Request for the data centre was submitted to the Council on 22 April 2026. The Council subsequently confirmed on 22 May 2026 that no EIA was required for the data centre application.”
We would also like to request that the Minister carry out a screening direction for the Greenock proposal, as the size of this site will fall well within the 50MW size bracket and the lack of information on power demand means it is unlikely that any EIA screening could have been carried out adequately.
More info on the development can be found on our website:https://aprs.scot/greenock-ibm-data-centre/
Yours sincerely Kat Jones