Blackpool Council preps datacentre planning application for tech-focused town regeneration bid

Blackpool Council is preparing to submit a planning permission application for a 6MW environmentally friendly datacentre before the end of the year, as part of its push to create a 40-acre technology campus dubbed Silicon Sands.

The council first went public with its plans for Silicon Sands in late May 2024. The project is designed to capitalise on Blackpool’s close proximity to the North Atlantic Loop undersea fibre cable network.

The local council said at the time that it wanted the site – located in the Blackpool Airport Enterprise Zone – to attract businesses to the area that require low-latency connections to high-performance computing resources.

It also set its sights on courting datacentre operators interested in building renewably powered server farms on the site that are also capable of contributing their waste heat back to the local community via district heating schemes.

In an update on how its plans for the site are progressing, the council confirmed a report to its executive has been prepared that features “recommendations” for the next steps on the project.

Alongside this is confirmation that a planning permission application for a 6MW datacentre on the site is being prepared and will be submitted before Christmas 2025, as a result of “significant interest” from private sector investors.

The council has also confirmed it has secured £2m in funding from the Lancashire devolution deal to support the growth of Silicon Sands, which has also secured strategic site status in Lancashire Combined County Authorities’ latest growth plan.

Mark Smith, Blackpool Council’s cabinet member for the economy and built environment, said the project has the potential to transform the town’s economy in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way. “Silicon Sands is a transformational opportunity for Blackpool,” he said. “It can create thousands of well-paid jobs, attract investment, and put us at the forefront of sustainable digital development. That vision is proven by the significant interest we have had from the private sector already.”

However, Smith was quick to state that the project is not just about building datacentres for the sake of it. “Silicon Sands is about so much more than just datacentres, though,” he continued. “We are carefully managing the programme so that we can create datacentres which are carbon friendly, and can even supply waste heat back to local communities.”

The council has also confirmed the local authority is among the hundreds of local authorities to have submitted an application to the government to bid for the opportunity to have the town become an artificial intelligence growth zone (AIGZ).

The government’s unveiled its AIGZ strategy in January 2025, with it forming the cornerstone of its bid to position the UK as an AI superpower.

As described by the government, these zones are designated sites that are well-suited to housing AI-enabled datacentres and their supporting infrastructure.

Ideally, they should have “enhanced access” to power supplies of at least 500MW and sympathetic planning support. This is because datacentres are notoriously power-hungry entities, and siting them in areas where energy is in short supply could slow down the time it takes to bring one of these AI server farms online.

Previously, the government has said it’s looking to build AIGZs in de-industrialised parts of the country that can be readily redeveloped to speed up the time it takes to bring them online.