Product1 publisher3 min readPublished
Scottish MSPs hold 50MW-plus data centre decisions until national guidance is published
Parliament approved text saying no decisions should be taken on data centre schemes over 50MW until national guidance is complete, while the planning minister told the same debate that a moratorium is neither necessary nor appropriate.
The Product Desk · Product desk
What happened
- Scottish ministers backed a de facto but temporary moratorium on hyperscale data centres, saying they will not approve any new schemes until new planning guidelines are finalised.
- MSPs from the SNP, Scottish Labour and the Scottish Conservatives declined to back the Green moratorium motion, but passed SNP and Labour amendments that hold decisions on schemes over 50MW.
- SNP minister Hannah Mary Goodlad said full guidance would be published by the end of the year, and that applications have a right to receive a timely decision.
- Earlier the same day the government announced legislation compelling any developer of a hyperscale data centre in Scotland to carry out a full environmental impact assessment.
- Action to Protect Rural Scotland called the vote a landmark day for worried communities, while Friends of the Earth Scotland said politicians had chosen to support data centre plans.
Compiled by The Product DeskSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- constraint A scheme above 50MW can now be held for up to a year on the motion's own outer deadline, and the sponsor cannot move that date forward with extra survey work or community engagement.
- contradiction Ministers say there is no moratorium and applications deserve timely decisions, while the text parliament endorsed says no decisions until guidance is complete, so applicants cannot tell which rule governs their case.
- exposure Applicants whose decisions are imminent are exposed to a ministerial call-in they cannot influence. Action to Protect Rural Scotland is now demanding exactly that.
- cost The environmental impact assessment duty puts survey time and spend on hyperscale developers before the guidance tells them what the assessment has to answer.
Kim Pratt, senior circular economy campaigner with Friends of the Earth Scotland, told The National that decisions in Falkirk, North Lanarkshire, Inverclyde and Fife are expected in a matter of weeks [13]. Consent for those sites now waits on guidance that is still to be written.
It is the decision that is paused. Goodlad said: "We cannot prevent planning applications from being lodged, nor should we. And applications have a right to receive a timely decision." [7] Applications keep arriving at councils that are not to rule on the ones above 50MW [19].
The Labour motion MSPs approved sets two dates. The government is to report back to parliament on the development of national planning guidance by the end of the current calendar year, and to publish that guidance in full within 12 months; until that is done, the text says no decisions on planning or consenting should be made [9]. Read against itself, the motion allows a scheme over 50MW to sit for a year before anyone approves or refuses it [16]. Pratt said that in the debate the planning minister suggested no data centres will be approved before Christmas [13].
50MW is now a design boundary as much as a capacity figure. The hold covers applications over 50MW [4]. The environmental impact assessment legislation the government announced earlier the same day applies to "hyperscale" schemes [10], and that announcement uses the word with no megawatt figure attached [18].
The unresolved question is who the text binds. Goodlad said: "We do not agree that there should be a moratorium." She said: "That is not necessary, it's not appropriate, and it would send the wrong message to anyone looking to invest in Scotland." [6] Dr. Kat Jones, director of Action to Protect Rural Scotland, said the endorsed text means Scottish government "must now urgently call in those applications which are approaching a decision date" [12]. Whether ministers call in the applications nearing their dates will show which reading councils follow.
Two questions sort a Scottish pipeline into four cells. Is the connection above 50MW, and does the decision date fall before or after the guidance is published. Below the threshold, the application sits outside the approved text [4]. Above it with a near date, the outcome turns on ministers. Above it with a date well into next year, the sponsor is bidding into criteria the guidance has yet to set, and the concerns MSPs heard were power and water usage [15]; the Green motion that started the debate cited a "huge wave of speculative proposals across Scotland" [2]. Goodlad said rigorous scrutiny by capable planning professionals, backed up by environmental assessment, is "more appropriate than a blanket suspension of all developments, regardless of their needs" [8].
What to watch
- Whether ministers call in the applications approaching decision dates in Falkirk, North Lanarkshire, Inverclyde and Fife.
- Whether the year-end report to parliament names criteria and a megawatt threshold, or only a timetable for the guidance.
- Whether the environmental impact assessment legislation defines hyperscale in megawatts, and how that lines up with the 50MW figure.