Fylde unanimously approves 240,000 sq ft co-location data centre

Singaporean real estate investment trust Elite UK has secured consent for a data centre located next to the Department for Work and Pensions’ Peel Park campus.

Outline plans for the scheme off Brunel Way, which has an indicative gross external floorspace of 240,000 sq ft, were lodged in 2024 and have been refined in the intervening period.

The overall height of the scheme has been reduced from 20 metres to 14 and a proposed 400-space, 15-metre multi-storey car park has been eliminated from the plans in favour of 228 surface level space.

Fylde Council’s planning committee voted in favour of the scheme, in line with officer recommendations, earlier this week.

The data centre would provide two floors for around 600 racks to accommodate servers to meet demand for internet usage.

Elite UK chose the site due to its connectivity to the North Atlantic Loop, a subsea fibre optic cable that connects the USA, UK, and Ireland and provide extremely fast and reliable internet speeds.

The cable is expected to make Blackpool more attractive to tech companies and data centre operators.

Within the Blackpool Airport Enterprise Zone, the council is progressing a scheme known as Silicon Sands – a 40-acre data centre cluster.

To learn more about the Fylde data centre, search for reference number 24/0516 on Fylde Council’s planning portal.

As well as planner Cassidy + Ashton, the project team features KeySource, TTSP, Murphy Geospatial, SLR, GEA, and Bowland Ecology.