Buckinghamshire Council has once again refused Greystoke’s plans to build a 72,000 sqm (775,000 sq ft) data center by the M25 in Iver, UK.
First reported in Bucks Free Press, the council refused the build on the grounds it would ‘harm’ the Green Belt.
Construction firm Altrad and Greystoke Land are the companies behind the data center application.
The proposed site is located at Iver’s Woodlands Park landfill site on land south of Slough Road between junction 14 of the M40 and junction 15 of the M4.
An even larger 163,000 sqm (1.7m sq ft) data center was the original proposition but was refused by the Secretary of State in October last year.
The amended planning application said the data center would span two buildings - rather than the originally proposed three - with each being a maximum height of 18m.
Buckinghamshire Council said it had received 63 letters of objection to the plans, including a letter from Joy Morrissey MP and Ivers Parish Council.
Those opposed to the proposal cited concerns for the Green Belt land.
The decision notice said: “The proposed development would constitute inappropriate development in the Green Belt, would result in harm to the openness of the Green Belt in both spatial and visual terms, and would conflict with the purposes of including land within the Green Belt.”
The 'Green Belts' are fourteen areas of land in the UK that are buffers between towns and towns and the countryside. They protected from most forms of development to prevent urban sprawl.
The application argued the new data center would create direct jobs from construction and indirect jobs in the supply chain.
It also claimed the data center would bring environmental benefits, including landscaping to strengthen the River Colne corridor, the creation of new areas of grassland, and buildings that featured ‘living green walls’.
Greystoke Land also had a proposal for a data center in Abbots Langley rejected earlier this year. This came just after the first proposal in Buckinghamshire was refused.
At the time, Greystoke director Anthony Crean criticized the move, saying the Green Belt is a “theological” concept that blocks developments in areas he believes are suitable for data centers.
