Holyrood ‘inching towards moratorium’ amid concerns over massive proposed developments in Auchtertool and beyond

In a village 21 miles north of Edinburgh, a real estate consultancy plans to build a datacentre larger than the village itself – 35 metres high, with an area larger than 100 football pitches.

Billed as the second-biggest datacentre in the world, the development in Auchertool, Fife, has attracted 1,600 objections.

“The public pressure is huge,” said David Torrance, a member of the Scottish parliament representing the village. “I’ve never seen this level of objection to a local plan, and I have been in politics for 25 years.”

Similar concerns are being echoed across Scotland, next to gargantuan planned developments in towns such as Airdrie and Larbert. In a matter of weeks, as the Scottish parliament comes back into session, the growing opposition could pose a challenge to Britain’s AI strategy.

“The Scottish government is inching towards a moratorium,” said Kat Jones, director of the Edinburgh-based charity Action to Protect Rural Scotland. “MSPs return to parliament next week, after a summer in their constituencies where they have been hearing the concerns of local people about proposed hyperscale datacentres. They will be expecting action.”

For months, UK officials have been encouraging would-be datacentre developers to consider Scotland. In April, Fintan Slye, the chief executive of the UK’s National Energy System Operator (Neso), told a London audience to look north : “If in the audience you have a big datacentre and you want to go to Scotland, please come talk to me, we will help you,” he said.

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