TL;DR

On Wednesday night MSPs refused to ban new AI data centres outright, voting instead to hold off planning and consent rulings for 12 months while ministers produce national guidance. The vote came through while Falkirk Council was holding a hearing on Apatura’s 300MW hyperscale proposal at Larbert, which has drawn more than 7,000 objections.

What Holyrood decided

Earlier this week we reported that MSPs were being asked to freeze data centre applications. The outcome is a halfway house. A blanket ban was defeated, but decisions on schemes will wait up to a year while ministers write the rules that councils are meant to apply. For developers with sites in the queue, that is a year of uncertainty. For communities, it is a year in which they know no approval can land without national guidance behind it.

The Larbert hearing

The news reached Larbert High School minutes before more than 100 residents sat down with around 10 Apatura staff at Falkirk Council’s pre-determination hearing. The proposal is for a 300MW data centre and substation on former farmland off Bellsdyke Road.

The numbers show the scale of opposition: 7,284 representations, of which 7,166 are objections and 83 in support. Councillors raised the 200 diesel back-up generators planned for the site, round-the-clock noise and the loss of trees.

Apatura opened by admitting it had not listened enough to the community and promised a liaison team. It argued the site suits the nearby Denny substation, would support about 500 jobs during delivery, and that without sites like this AI investment would go to England and Wales. Its opening case did not mention the site’s closeness to homes or to the Forth Valley Royal Hospital.

The director of the neighbouring Glenbervie Care Home, Graeme Hendry, said the developer had never approached the home, where 56 residents live and some depend on continuous mechanical ventilation. The developer had 10 minutes to reply at the end of a four-hour session.

Part of a wider pattern

Police Scotland had already warned of protest risk at Larbert in August, and Ayrshire campaigners staged a beach protest ahead of this week’s royal AI summit. UK AI capacity is being argued over site by site, and the local planning process is where the argument is sharpest.

Looking forward

Falkirk councillors still have to decide the Larbert application, and it is not yet clear how the Holyrood pause applies to schemes already this far through the process. The contents of the national guidance, particularly on backup power, water and distance from hospitals and care homes, will set the terms for every Scottish proposal that follows.