AINEWS
The Scottish government has just set the planning notification threshold for new datacentres at 50MW, putting the proposed 600MW Auchtertool build, 21 miles north of Edinburgh, among the highest profile projects now caught by it.
A 600MW datacentre has been proposed for Auchtertool, a village in Fife roughly 21 miles north of Edinburgh. The plan calls for a building 35 metres high and larger than 100 football pitches. The developer describes the project as the second-biggest datacentre in the world, a ranking that comes from the developer's own marketing rather than an independent yardstick. The local planning file now holds 1,600 written objections.
"I've never seen this level of objection to a local plan, and I have been in politics for 25 years," said David Torrance, the local Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP). He said the developer interest comes down to inputs. Scotland is "energy-rich, and water-rich," he said, while England is in drought and the national grid is under strain.
This week, Scotland's minister for public finance issued new directions requiring local planning authorities to notify the Scottish government whenever they receive a datacentre application above 50MW. That threshold is roughly a tenth of the 600MW Auchtertool build and below most hyperscale (warehouse-sized, hundreds-of-megawatts) proposals in the queue. The Scottish government has not previously set a single, quantitative trigger of its own for datacentre planning.
Notification lets ministers call applications in for their own decision, attach conditions, or stall them. Any proposal above 50MW becomes a politically administered file, not a routine local planning matter.
Objections are surfacing at planned hyperscale sites in Airdrie and Larbert as well. The Scottish parliament returns from summer recess next week.
Fintan Slye, chief executive of the National Energy System Operator (Neso), the UK body that plans the electricity grid, told a London audience: "If in the audience you have a big datacentre and you want to go to Scotland, please come talk to me, we will help you." The pitch was simple. Developers should pick Scotland over England on the merits of power and water.
Planning is devolved to Holyrood (the Scottish Parliament), so the Scottish government's 50MW rule sits inside a decision-making lane Whitehall does not control. That asymmetry links a Fife planning file to Britain's AI strategy.
MSPs return to the chamber next week, with the 50MW rule live and the 600MW Auchtertool file waiting on a ministerial response.