Blackpool Council preps datacentre planning software for tech-focused city regeneration bid

Blackpool Council is making ready to submit a planning permission software for a 6MW environmentally pleasant datacentre earlier than the tip of the 12 months, as a part of its push to create a 40-acre know-how campus dubbed Silicon Sands.

The council first went public with its plans for Silicon Sands in late Might 2024. The undertaking is designed to capitalise on Blackpool’s shut proximity to the North Atlantic Loop undersea fibre cable community.

The native council stated on the time that it wished the positioning – situated within the Blackpool Airport Enterprise Zone – to draw companies to the realm that require low-latency connections to high-performance computing sources.

It additionally set its sights on courting datacentre operators interested by constructing renewably powered server farms on the positioning which are additionally able to contributing their waste warmth again to the local people by way of district heating schemes.

In an replace on how its plans for the positioning are progressing, the council confirmed a report back to its government has been ready that options “suggestions” for the subsequent steps on the undertaking.

Alongside that is affirmation {that a} planning permission software for a 6MW datacentre on the positioning is being ready and can be submitted earlier than Christmas 2025, on account of “important curiosity” from non-public sector buyers.

The council has additionally confirmed it has secured £2m in funding from the Lancashire devolution deal to help the expansion of Silicon Sands, which has additionally secured strategic web site standing in Lancashire Mixed County Authorities’ newest development plan.

Mark Smith, Blackpool Council’s cupboard member for the financial system and constructed setting, stated the undertaking has the potential to rework the city’s financial system in a sustainable and environmentally pleasant approach. “Silicon Sands is a transformational alternative for Blackpool,” he stated. “It could possibly create hundreds of well-paid jobs, appeal to funding, and put us on the forefront of sustainable digital growth. That imaginative and prescient is confirmed by the numerous curiosity we now have had from the non-public sector already.”

Nonetheless, Smith was fast to state that the undertaking isn’t just about constructing datacentres for the sake of it. “Silicon Sands is about a lot extra than simply datacentres, although,” he continued. “We’re fastidiously managing the programme in order that we are able to create datacentres that are carbon pleasant, and may even provide waste warmth again to native communities.”

The council has additionally confirmed the native authority is among the many a whole lot of native authorities to have submitted an software to the federal government to bid for the chance to have the city change into a synthetic intelligence development zone (AIGZ).

The federal government’s unveiled its AIGZ technique in January 2025, with it forming the cornerstone of its bid to place the UK as an AI superpower.

As described by the federal government, these zones are designated websites which are well-suited to housing AI-enabled datacentres and their supporting infrastructure.

Ideally, they need to have “enhanced entry” to energy provides of not less than 500MW and sympathetic planning help. It is because datacentres are notoriously power-hungry entities, and siting them in areas the place vitality is briefly provide might decelerate the time it takes to deliver one in all these AI server farms on-line.

Beforehand, the federal government has stated it’s trying to construct AIGZs in de-industrialised components of the nation that may be readily redeveloped to hurry up the time it takes to deliver them on-line.