Plans for a large data centre on the former Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters site in Edinburgh have been thrown out by councillors. 

The proposals, brought forward by landowner Shelborn Asset Management, covered the South Gyle site at Redheughs Avenue and were marketed as a ‘green’ data centre, alongside wider works including a new public park. 

While Shelborn was confident in its ability to deliver the data centre, the plans haven’t been without scrutiny. In fact, just days ago, campaigners mounted a last-ditch effort to block the project from moving forward. That campaign focused on the ‘green’ aspects of the data centre, arguing that the use of the site’s back-up generators could be equivalent to ‘100,000 idling cars-worth of diesel’ being burned

Officers backed it – but councillors weren’t convinced

The unanimous refusal by the council’s development management sub-committee will likely be a shock to Shelborn Asset Management, after all the council’s own planning officials had recommended that the project go-ahead. 

Despite recommendations from their own planning officials, councillors had to wrestle with whether the scheme was compatible with its policy direction for the wider Edinburgh Park development – which was supposed to shift away from a business-dominated environment and towards a more mixed-use space that was better integrated with the city. Ultimately, they decided that the data centre wasn’t conducive to those plans. 

Representatives for Shelborn Asset Management tried to argue the wider benefits the data centre could have for a mixed-use development – noting that it would be able to use waste heat from the data centre to supply homes and offices that are built at Edinburgh Park. However, councillors questioned how realistic that benefit was in the near term, and whether the scheme could meet the criteria being used to justify its ‘major scale’ status.

Was this actually a ‘green’ data centre?

Councillors also took issue with whether the data centre plans actually constituted as being ‘green’, as claimed by the developers. According to Alys Mumford, a Green councillor that sits on the committee, “It’s only green data centres that are considered to be of major scale and therefore of national importance and we’re told in the report that the fact it is national infrastructure is the reason why, on balance, it has been recommended even though it doesn’t comply with several of our policies.”

Councillor Mumford also argued it could not be considered a green data centre because, she believed, it failed to meet several of the criteria.

She said, “On power from renewable energy sources, we’ve been told there is something in place but we haven’t been given the figures on this, we haven’t been able to hear from the power providers.

“On making use of efficient technologies, we haven’t had that much reassurance around the air cooling system.

“Seeking to minimise water consumption – we know there hasn’t been pre-engagement with Scottish Water and no real detail about cooling. If this was a serious plan, this would have been at the forefront of discussions.

“And re-use of heat is the really key one for more. We were told by the applicants this was one of the main advantages for the council. We are nowhere near being able to realise this currently, so we have to discount that at the moment.

“So if this isn’t a green data centre, which I believe it isn’t, there are major issues with this proposal which can’t be balanced out by that national consideration.”

She said among other issues, the plan would remove a quarter of the trees on the site and the scale was ‘unacceptably large and dominant on the skyline’.

Other councillors appeared to agree with Alys, ultimately deciding that the data centre would fail to win its application for planning permission on the grounds that it didn’t meet the criteria to be considered ‘green’. 

What happens next for Shelborn is likely to come down to whether it returns with a redesigned proposal that more clearly meets the council’s policy tests, or whether it pursues whatever appeal route is available. Unlike data centres in England, however, they may face a harder time convincing the Government in Holyrood to overturn the local council’s decision.