Scottish police expect ‘great deal of public opposition’ to planned Larbert datacentre
Scottish police have warned that a proposed datacentre will require “robust security measures” to prevent “incursion” amid growing public resistance to such developments in Scotland
Scottish police have warned that a proposed datacentre will require “robust security measures” to prevent “incursion” amid growing public resistance to such developments in Scotland. “A great deal of public opposition is likely” to a datacentre planned in Larbert, about 30 miles west of Edinburgh, the Scottish police have said in a letter submitted as a part of a planning consultation earlier this month. The letter encouraged the site’s developer, a planning consultancy called Apatura, to liaise with the police to “prevent unplanned incursions for the purposes of disruption”. The letter appears to be one of the first official acknowledgments of mounting public unease about datacentre development in the UK. The Scottish police declined to comment. There are hundreds of datacentre projects in various stages of planning in Britain. Only some of these appear to be viable developments, with research groups warning of a glut of “zombie projects” waiting to connect to the grid. These questions are particularly acute in Scotland, where there are at least 23 “hyperscale” datacentre developments in the planning process, according to the Edinburgh-based charity Action to Protect Rural Scotland (APRS). Combined, they would use more than one and a half times the power that Scotland uses at peak demand.
View image in fullscreen Nearly 7,000 people have filed objections to the proposed datacentre in Larbert. Photograph: Larbert residents group Groups across Scotland have started organising opposition to planned datacentres. A protest in Larbert on Thursday drew over 100 people, according to local campaigners. Nearly 7,000 people have filed objections to the proposed development. Similar protests are planned in the coming weeks, including one in Edinburgh in early September, when the Scottish parliament will be back in session. This summer, the Scottish party passed a motion to freeze all new datacentres in Scotland. If that motion becomes Scottish government policy, it could pose a serious threat to the UK’s AI strategy. British officials have been pushing datacentre developers to build in Scotland. skip past newsletter promotion Free newsletter | Every day Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day’s headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning Enter your email Sign up after newsletter promotion Some of the opposition to datacentres is about the physical footprint of the projects. Michael Maciocia, a Larbert resident who attended Thursday’s protest, said he and others were worried about the 200 diesel generators that Apatura planned to install as backup power for the datacentre.
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