Residents' backlash over massive data centre planned next to Fife village

The vast campus on land to the north-west of Auchtertool was outlined in a planning application to Fife Council - and it could have buildings 35m tall.

ILI Cato Limited is seeking planning permission in principle a complex of data hall buildings as well as electricity substations, security fencing, gatehouses, internal access roads, parking, pathways, associated ancillary infrastructure, and landscaping including ponds, landscape bunds, new woodland, wetland, hedgerow, scrub, and wildflower meadow habitats.

Andrea Cail, who is chair of Auchtertool Community Council, said they were shocked at sheer the scale of plans - and there is “general anxiety” in the village about the 61-acre project.

“It is a big development,” she said. “I think to say we were somewhat taken aback is a bit of an understatement.

“I have been informed this morning that the world’s largest single data centre is in Nevada and is 650 megawatts. That is only 50 megawatts bigger than what is being proposed for our wee hamlet here in Auchtertool. It is a tiny part of Scotland compared to Nevada.

“We have only got 215 houses in the village. We are not big. It is a small compact village.”

A public meeting has been called for Wednesday June 3 in Auchtertool Village Hall 7:00pm. The aim is to weigh up public support for a possible legal challenge against Fife Council’s decision not to request an environmental impact assessment as part of the application. That issue has also been raised by Councillor Kathleen Leslie,(Burntisland, Kinghorn & Western Kirkcaldy, Conservatives).

A planning statement on behalf of the developers said that the Cato Data Centre will be the flagship of three interconnected data centres, known as ‘The Stoics’.

It continued: “The projects would provide essential infrastructure across the Scottish Central Belt where IT services can be delivered in close proximity to the majority of end users, and where sufficient land electrical connection and renewable energy supply are available.

“The applicant is able to ensure green energy supply via power usage agreements from other projects under their control, including Pumped Hydro Storage schemes.”

Each data hall would house a “precision-engineered environment” where data is processed, stored, replicated and secured, in servers and computer processors with IT equipment and associated mechanical and electrical plant.

Each data hall building would have its own office space with the south building/lab completing the ‘campus’ design ILI say the site was selected after a nationwide search process for land with suitable characteristics.

It added: “Sites with a cooler climate and breeze are able to operate more efficiently with more ‘free cooling’.

“Thus a site in Fife can operate more efficiently than one in the London area for example. The breeze available at the suite is evidenced by the surrounding wind energy developments.”

Ms Cail said there was “general anxiety” in the village about the plans and their scale.

“There is a lack of detail about how much water will be required, where it will go when discharged, the incredible amount of electricity that will be needed and the impact it will have on our local community with a three-year build programme,” she continued.

“Our biggest concern is there is a lot of these planned in Scotland at the moment and somewhere there needs to be a national plan for how many data centres we need rather than communities having to spend time campaigning and getting anxious about proposals that have been put in speculatively in the hope that one will land somewhere and come good.”

Ms Cail was not convinced Scotland’s climate was a reason for the site being an ideal one.

“That is the level of incredulity that is being presented with this,” she said. “We were told by the developer at the time that we have been carefully selected because we are only place in Scotland who provided them with what they needed – we were supposed to be excited by that.

“There are wind farms about us, yes we have battery storage and yes there is a solar development that has just gone through which will also be put on opposite side of the hills to where this proposal is being sited.

“Another part of the statement by the developer says it is in keeping with its surroundings because we have wind turbines.

“We would argue it is not in keeping with our landscape.

“This is a new concept. No-one knows what they are dealing with including the developer. It is new technology, we have to move with the times. All that is right but fundamentally the man on the street doesn’t understand what a data centre is doing and how much energy, water and space it takes to run.

“There are still a lot of big conversations to be had.”

Outlining the proposals on their website, ILI say the development will be sensitively designed to minimise local disruption and will include landscaping to help it sit comfortably within environment

It says the project will be a “major investment” that brings hundreds of jobs during construction and skilled tech jobs when operating.

Action to Protect Rural Scotland (APRS) has also raised its objections, and said the data centre would use the equivalent energy of half of Scotland’s 2.55 million households and 20% of the nation’s total energy use.

The application will come before councillors in due course.