TL;DR

Canterbury City Council’s planning committee has approved an AI data centre from Era4 on a brownfield site next to Shelford Landfill at Broad Oak, the BBC reported on 23 October. Four councillors voted in favour, one against and three abstained. Councillors raised concerns about water use for cooling, and the council’s planning chief called the expected demand modest.

The site and the vote

Era4, a British infrastructure company that was called Carbon3.AI until March, wants to use land that once held a composting facility and is now used for general storage. It argued the location offers an “opportunity to make efficient use of land and to connect to an on-site source of renewable energy”. The vote was reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service. Ian Stockley, a councillor, had told a meeting on 21 July that the scheme seemed “incredibly wasteful of our natural resources”.

The water question

Era4 says its closed-loop cooling would only run when outside temperatures exceed 25 degrees. Its water statement puts expected use at up to 8.2 cubic metres (1,804 gallons) a day, below the 20 cubic metres suggested by South East Water. Councillor Michael Dixey called water “obviously a massive concern” and asked whether a lower cap could be set. Simon Thomas, the council’s head of planning, said the demand was roughly what 60 households use and “not a significant use of water comparatively”.

A pattern of landfill sites

This is not the company’s first landfill-adjacent proposal. In November 2025, as Carbon3.AI, it lodged plans with Chesterfield Borough Council for a modular AI facility beside the M1 on the Erin Road landfill site, planning to draw power by private wire from a neighbouring plant that generates electricity from landfill gas. We covered that Derbyshire application at the time.

Looking Forward

For a larger Kent scheme that met local opposition, see our report on the Southfleet plan for a 145-acre AI data centre. In our view, Canterbury’s decision shows that a brownfield proposal with published water figures can get through a planning committee. The split vote, with three abstentions, suggests the margin was still narrow.