A plan to build a £3.75bn hyperscale datacentre on a plot of green belt land neighbouring the South Mimms Service Station in Hertfordshire has secured local authority approval, despite more than 900 objections to the build being filed.
The project is being overseen by a development company known as DC01UK, which applied to Hertsmere Borough Council in September 2024 for outline planning permission.
The council has now rubber-stamped DC01UK’s application for outline planning permission, which means it considers the company’s plans for the site to be an acceptable use of the land in principle.
As detailed on the council’s planning portal, 929 objections were raised about the project, while a further 503 were submitted in support of DC01UK’s plans.
“We want to thank Hertsmere Borough Council for their open and pragmatic approach to DC01UK’s plans. They understand our ambition for both the project and the borough. It will bring huge benefits for local people through a stronger local economy, more skilled jobs and better opportunities,” said a DC01UK spokesperson.
“Our plan will put Hertfordshire at the epicentre of the new datacentre revolution, as well as creating £3.75bn for the economy during construction and almost 14,000 indirect jobs once operational.”
As detailed in the planning documents, DC01UK is not an operator of datacentres, but looks set to market the site as having potential to develop it into a datacentre now that outline planning permission has been secured.
As previously reported by Computer Weekly, it was confirmed in September 2024 that several parties have already been in discussions with DC01UK about the possibility of taking over the site to build a hyperscale datacentre on it tailored to their specific needs.
Even so, DC01UK has previously claimed the site will be home to Europe’s largest cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) datacentre once it is completed.
The news also comes hot on the heels of the government publishing its 50-point AI opportunities action plan policy paper, which outlines how it plans to ensure the use of AI technologies becomes more pervasive across the UK.
In support of this, the government has committed to taking steps to increase the availability of AI-ready compute capacity across the UK by lowering the planning barriers to new datacentre builds.
Minister for telecoms Chris Bryant MP said datacentres are the “beating hearts of this modern age” and are something society can “no longer live without”.
He added: “Datacentres like this will not only play a pivotal role in the AI opportunities action plan, but drive economic growth through the creation of skilled jobs across the south-east.”
Stephen Beard, head of datacentres at real estate advisory Knight Frank, which consulted with DC01UK on the project, described the build as “the first of its kind”.
“[It will be] the largest datacentre development in Europe in the world’s second-largest market, which is perfectly positioned in its ability to service the ever-increasing cloud demand today whilst accommodating the AI needs of tomorrow,” he said.
“A first and great example of the UK’s shift towards becoming a dominant superpower in cloud, AI and general digital infrastructure.”
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