Ministers are tightening their grip on major datacentre developments amid a growing backlash from activists over their environmental and energy impacts.

Local councils will have to notify the Scottish Government within a week of accepting any major datacentre application, under new rules designed to give greater ministers greater oversight over the process.

The direction, issued by public finance minister Hannah Mary Goodlad, applies to datacentre developments exceeding 50 megawatts (MW) power capacity – which, if running constantly, would be enough to power a small city for a year.

Ministers say the new duty will support ‘strategic monitoring of the pipeline of such planning applications and of the implications for wider infrastructure’.

Goodlad also recalled a planning appeal for ministerial decision relating to a proposed ‘green’ datacentre in Edinburgh, the controversial 1 Redheughs Avenue planning application lodged by Shelborn Drummond Ltd.

Local campaigners insisted the 212MW facility was on an energy use magnitude unlike anything ever seen by the city.

Plans for the site, located at the former Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters in west Edinburgh, were rejected unanimously by councillors in February.

Goodlad also issued directions requiring environmental impact assessments at locations in Fife and Edinburgh.

She said: “Data centres is a rapidly emerging sector, and planning has an important role to play in considering applications, harnessing economic opportunities, and finding solutions which align with our climate goals.

“We must balance the economic and employment interests in developing data centres with national energy, climate and community wealth building ambitions, which are vital to our future prosperity, as well as the potential impact on local communities.

“It is essential to secure public benefits from this type of development, and I am clear that voices of communities that will be affected will be central to any considerations on data centres.”

This summer, the Scottish National party passed a motion to freeze all new datacentres in Scotland. And Police Scotland issued a warning last week that AI datacentres needed beefed up security due to the risk of potential attack.

Industry voices are also calling for greater clarity from government. Development consultancy Pegasus Group said Scotland ‘urgently needs clear guidance on green data centres’. In a blog post last week, Colin Lavety, senior planning director at Pegasus Group, wrote: “Scotland’s National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) already defines green data centres as ‘National Development.’

“However, Scotland lacks guidance on how developers and Local Authorities should apply this status while delivering green data centres. This is at odds with the UK Government’s designation of data centres as Critical National Infrastructure and could lead to unintended consequences.  

“A lack of guidance not only leaves developers in the dark but also risks Scotland falling behind on its 2026-2031 AI strategy. More importantly, it could deter data centre investment away from Scotland and towards other nations that do have greater planning predictability.”