Amazon data centre near M25 gets approval
Buckinghamshire Council says the economic benefits outweigh other concerns.
Amazon data centre near M25 gets approval
Buckinghamshire Council previously rejected plans for two other data centres in Iver
Amazon has been granted permission to build a large data centre next to the M25, despite worries about its environmental effects.
The project will take the place of 17 industrial and warehouse units at the Ridgeway Distribution Centre in Iver, Buckinghamshire.
Ivers Parish Council said the building would harm air quality and increase traffic, but Buckinghamshire Council approved the plans on Monday.
Officers said the demand for data centres, the jobs they would create and an anticipated drop in vehicle movements outweighed other factors.
The main building for the data centre would stand at about 20 metres (65ft) high.
The 18-acre (7.3-hectare) development also includes a substation, water tanks, a generator yard, security fencing and parking.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service said the parish council did not support or oppose the application, but asked for better walking routes, including the canal path, and wanted low-emission vehicles used during construction.
The site lies within an air quality management area, and the council’s environmental health team said the 27 back-up generators would create emissions during routine testing and maintenance.
Air-quality modelling forecast a negligible impact at the locations assessed, but officers said that did not mean the scheme would have no effect.
A legal agreement has secured £600,382 for projects to offset any air pollution from the site.
It also requires a plan to monitor emissions from the generators, which would mainly run on hydrotreated vegetable oil, with diesel as a back-up fuel.
Officers said Amazon had also agreed to pay £73,000 towards improvements to public rights of way.
Data centres are large warehouses filled with powerful computers used to run digital services, from movie streaming to online banking.
The approval follows Buckinghamshire Council’s earlier rejection of plans for a data centre on green belt land at the Court Lane Industrial Estate in Iver, only for that decision to be overturned by housing secretary Angela Rayner.
However, this year the government accepted it was wrong to approve planning permission for a data centre at the nearby Woodlands Park landfill site, after it had first been refused by the authority.
On the latest proposal, Buckinghamshire Council said: "We don't have anything further to add."
Amazon said it would not be "sharing a statement for inclusion", but planning documents estimated the scheme could support 60 full-time jobs on site, as well as jobs created during construction.