Data centres: is there still a green light for new proposals?

The first EIA challenge: lessons for developer

Environmental scrutiny of data centre proposals is entering a new phase. The UK’s first legal challenge to a granted data centre consent – involving a site at Woodlands Park, Buckinghamshire, approved on appeal in April 2025 – was brought by Foxglove and Global Action Plan, arguing that the Secretary of State failed to properly assess the scheme’s environmental effects, including its energy and water consumption. In January 2026, the Secretary of State accepted that the decision should be quashed, acknowledging a “serious logical error”: the screening out of a full Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) had been based on mitigation measures that were not, in fact, secured within the consent itself. Following CG Fry & Son Ltd v SSHCLG [2025] P.T.S.R 1823, the Government accepted it could no longer rely on mitigation being secured at the Reserved Matters stage. The full challenge was granted permission to proceed on all grounds in January 2026 – including whether the carbon emissions from running the hardware needed to be assessed at the EIA screening stage. The outcome could reshape EIA practice across the sector and for developers, the immediate consequence is clear: inadequate screening decisions carry real risks of programme delay and consent vulnerability.

Net zero and the view from Scotland

Questions are also mounting about data centres’ place in the UK’s net zero plans. In Parliament, the government has acknowledged that future electricity demand from data centres remains uncertain and that scrutiny of this issue is likely to intensify. Experience north of the border reinforces the point: a proposed ‘green data centre’ at South Gyle in Edinburgh was refused planning permission in February 2026, despite being recommended for approval. The project failed to satisfy local criteria for a genuinely green scheme, and concerns were raised about its contribution to the climate crisis – a theme that closely mirrors the legal challenge in England. While Scottish planning policy differs from the English framework, the direction of travel is consistent: environmental credentials will face increasing scrutiny, wherever a data centre proposal is located. This is an additional variable developers must manage now, not later.

Overlapping consents: a risk worth monitoring

The risk of overlapping historical consents is one that deserves careful attention during site promotion. In December 2025, a DCO application for a blue hydrogen project – H2Teeside – was withdrawn after planning permission for a data centre had been granted on the same site in Redcar and Cleveland. In that instance the data centre consent stood, but the reverse could equally apply: an incompatible historical consent could lead to the withdrawal or refusal of a data centre application. A thorough review of any site’s planning history before it is actively promoted is therefore essential.