Planners OK £950m data farm

PLANS for a £950 million data centre at Lockerbie have cleared the first hurdle.

Lockerbie Data Centres’ bid to create Europe’s biggest data centre at Peelhouses was granted conditional approval despite road safety concerns.

The decision means construction of the facility, which could attract up to £3.5 billion worth of investment, could start as early as next year as approval from Scottish Ministers is no longer needed.

Welcoming the go-ahead project director David King said: “We are delighted to be given the green light for one of the most exciting projects currently taking place in Scotland. This is a major enterprise programme that will be of considerable benefit, not only to Dumfries and Galloway, but to the whole of Scotland and parts of the north of England, creating thousands of jobs.

“Feedback from the local community has been extremely positive and this development will put Dumfries and Galloway on the map as world leaders in data centre provision.”

But improvements to the roads structure to the Peelhouses site along the U280 Haas Road and B723 to widen the carriageway will need to be agreed by Annandale and Eskdale Area Committee before work starts.

Members, at their meeting in Lockerbie, said that they were concerned that road safety issues still need to be addressed.

Annandale North representative Gail Macgregor is worried that reserved matters for road improvements would be decided without the input from elected members.

She said: “This could have a huge benefit or a detrimental impact on the area.

“Given the magnitude of this development it is going to have an enormous impact on the community. There are massive road implications.”

The amount of traffic set to use the roads around Peelhouses will rocket by 676 per cent according to development team leader for local services Bob Brydson.

He said that between 8 am and 9 am the number of passenger car units, not vehicles, would jump from 72 at the moment to 487 while at the evening rush hour there would be 351 once the centre was up and running compared to 53 now.

Around 3000 jobs could be created over the construction phase which is set to last between five and ten years and Lockerbie Data Centres hope the business park alone could attract 900 new jobs and a further 90 could be created at a horticultural research centre.

But the data centre itself will only create about 50 jobs with another ten for estate management.





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