A New Year tendering battle is set to begin for a data centre job in Buckinghamshire.
Contractors will be invited to bid to build the 140MW data centre after the government overturned a planning decision by the county council.
The site, called Court Lane, is currently an industrial estate on a 14-acre site next to the M25 near the village of Iver.
The job is valued at £253.9m by construction data intelligence provider Glenigan.
The project (CGI pictured) involves the demolition of the Court Lane industrial estate, as well as the building of the data centre, which will be up to 65,000 square metres in size. The data-centre work will include ancillary offices, car and cycle parking, plus external plant installation.
The job will also include hard and soft landscaping, security perimeter fencing, lighting, earthworks, waste, and the laying out of routes.
Another element of the project is the full refurbishment of the Grade II-listed Iver Court Farmhouse.
The tender will open for contractor bids in the New Year, according to asset-management firm Patrizia, which currently owns the site but has agreed to sell it to real estate investment firm Affinius Capital.
A contracted power agreement with the National Grid to accommodate a data centre has already been agreed, Patrizia said in a statement this morning (10 December).
It added that data-centre specialist Corscale will develop the site.
Approval of the Iver data centre follows the decision announced in writing on 6 December by housing and planning minister Matthew Pennycook to overrule a local planning decision.
The planning application was called in by deputy prime minister Angela Rayner in July this year after Buckinghamshire Council rejected it the previous month.
A statement from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said the Iver project was approved because the site is an optimal location for a data centre.
It said: “There is a clear lack of alternative sites available at present to meet the demand for such data centres in the Slough and Hayes availability zones.”
The MHCLG added: “Failure to meet this need could have significant negative consequences for the UK digital economy.”
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Chris Smith