DR - Fotolia

News

SNP council backs datacentre halt and creates Burnham dilemma

As Scottish National Party council passes a motion for Scotland datacentre moratorium, Andy Burnham’s avowed ‘power to the regions’ views face strain in light of critical national infrastructure designation

Antony Adshead
By
Published: 07 Jul 2026 14:00

The Scottish National Party’s (SNP) national council has passed a motion to freeze all new datacentre development in Scotland, which would create a constitutional and policy challenge to Westminster’s artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure ambitions and a political paradox for likely incoming prime minister Andy Burnham.

The motion, passed recently by the SNP council and now headed to the Scottish Parliament, calls for a temporary cessation of datacentre projects that have not yet received planning permission. 

SNP councillor Lesley Backhouse, who attended the national council meeting, described the current pipeline of proposals as “extreme overdevelopment” and said she supports “the local community and their endeavours to prevent this from happening”, according to the Guardian.

The resolution lands at a moment when the UK government has doubled down on datacentres as critical national infrastructure (CNI). The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has designated datacentres as essential services under the Network and Information Systems Regulations 2018. Datacentres with a rated IT load of 1MW or more will fall in scope, bringing mandatory security and resilience duties.

For Burnham, the contradiction with his political brand is thrown into relief. He has talked about “taking power out of the centre” and devolving authority to regions and local areas – a philosophy he has championed during his tenure as mayor of Greater Manchester. 

But the Westminster machine he stands to inherit treats datacentres as nationally significant infrastructure that must be built, and fast, to keep the UK in what ministers frame as the global AI race. 

That, said Bill McCluggage, who was director of IT strategy and policy in the Cabinet Office and deputy government CIO from 2009 to 2012, should be what guides Burnham.

“A new Burnham government should reconcile localism with national priorities by recognising that datacentres are now critical national infrastructure,” said McCluggage. 

“Concerns raised by APRS [Action to Protect Rural Scotland] about electricity demand, water use and environmental impact deserve to be taken seriously as they demonstrate why Scotland needs strategic planning rather than either a blanket moratorium or a free-for-all.”

McCluggage added that if current proposals place unacceptable pressure on the grid, the answer would be to phase development alongside investment in new generating capacity, transmission networks and water infrastructure rather than a blanket ban on new planning applications.

Meanwhile, Conservative peer Chris Holmes said: “Datacentres are essential not only to the UK AI story, but also to the economic growth imperative. The government must decide to act to resolve the energy cost crisis, determine the most advantageous locations, drive forward the AI growth zones and attract the talent to work in and around these new foundries for our future.”

He added: “These datacentres need to be right-sized for the function and the workload they will deal with locally. If the government gets it right, this will drive growth at a local, regional and additive nation level.”

Structural clash

But the planning frameworks on either side of the border make the clash, to some extent, structural. Scotland operates a fully devolved planning system, governed by its own legislation. Under its National Planning Framework 4, datacentres classified as “green data centres” are designated as national developments that give them a privileged position in the planning hierarchy. But the term “green data centre” remains undefined. 

Meanwhile, the pipeline of proposed projects tells its own story. Many of the developments cited as evidence of a datacentre land grab in Scotland exist only as pre-application notices or environmental impact assessment screening requests. They do not yet have planning consent and may never secure grid connections at the scale developers claim. It is well established in the industry that datacentre developers routinely bank land and publicise plans that remain, in practice, speculative.

The motion before the Scottish Parliament draws heavily on analysis published by Action to Protect Rural Scotland, the countryside charity that has led the campaign against unchecked datacentre expansion. In December 2025, APRS and the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland wrote to planning minister Ivan McKee calling for a pause on all datacentre applications until a strategic approach and strict environmental standards are established.

APRS has listed 24 hyperscale datacentres at various stages of the planning process, with a combined energy demand it reckons at 6,230MW – a figure larger than Scotland’s entire winter peak electricity demand of just over 4GW. Three-quarters of that demand comes from planning applications lodged by a single developer, Apatura.

The SNP motion also references 24 hyperscale projects. Computer Weekly has requested a copy of the SNP council motio, but had not received a response by the time of publication.

Not all of those projects will materialise at the scale claimed, but the motion represents the first instance of a devolved administration preparing to use planning autonomy to push back directly against Westminster’s centralised AI infrastructure drive.

Good growth tests

One possible path through the impasse lies in what might be termed a “good growth” test. Datacentre developers seeking planning fast-tracks could be required to demonstrate tangible social value, such as connection to local heat networks, upgrades to grid infrastructure that benefit surrounding communities, or binding commitments to water stewardship. 

McCluggage suggested an approach along these lines. “Scotland has a unique opportunity to lead the UK and Europe by showing how digital infrastructure can be delivered responsibly,” he said.

“Prioritising suitable post-industrial and brownfield sites, where power and water infrastructure already exists or can be upgraded more efficiently, would help regenerate former industrial communities while protecting more sensitive locations,” he added.

“Environmental concerns should shape better projects and better planning, but they should not prevent Scotland from building the digital infrastructure that will underpin its future economy. The challenge is not whether to build datacentres, but how to build them in the right places, at the right pace, and with the supporting infrastructure already planned.”

Read more about datacentres and planning

Read more on Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)