Elected members serving the city last week voted unanimously to deny an application for planning permission to be granted for a tech facility intended to support delivery of AI tools
The City of Edinburgh Council has rejected plans for a datacentre proposed to be built in the Scottish capital to support artificial intelligence technologies.
Planning officers had previously recommended that approval should be given to the project – located on the site of former Royal Bank of Scotland offices in the South Gyle neighbourhood in the west of the city. But, at a meeting last week, councillors refused to grant planning permission for the tech development.
In the run-up to the decision, concerns had been raised by campaigners about the potential environmental impact of the computing facility.
The application had been for a “green datacentre with associated infrastructure”, as well at the creation of a “public park with sports facilities”. It argued “modern cooling technology” would allow the site to use less energy than traditional datacentres.
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But Action to Protect Rural Scotland specifically warned about the impact of the diesel generators which would provide back-up power. All datacentres require 24/7 energy, necessitating contingency plans to prevent downtime.
The charity estimated the site would require the equivalent energy of over 100,000 idling diesel cars each hour.
A report by the city’s chief planning officer recommended the application be granted, subject to some conditions. The report said that “on balance, the merits of the proposal outweigh the infringements” to the council’s policy on creating spaces with a “thriving” mix of uses.
However, the council did not require developers to submit an environmental impact assessment, which APRS said was “not usual” for datacentre applications.
The council’s Development Management Sub-Committee met for several hours on Wednesday of last week and unanimously voted against the application.
Shortly after coming to power following the 2024 general election, the incoming Labour administration announced that datacentres would be classified as part of the UK’s critical national infrastructure.
The CNI designation means that companies operating IT hosting facilities can “expect greater government support in recovering from and anticipating critical incidents”, according to the government.
This assistance will include the creation of a dedicated unit of “senior government officials” whose role will include a remit to “monitor and anticipate potential threats… and coordinate access to emergency services” in the event of a cyberattack or outage.
The inclusion of datacentres in the CNI regime – which also includes water, energy, and emergency-services infrastructure – was the first time a new classification had been made since 2015, when the defence and space sectors were added to the list.
A version of this story originally appeared on PublicTechnology sister publication Holyrood
