Scotland imposes mandatory environmental assessments on new datacentres

Government announces before vote on moratorium that any projects above 50MW must submit assessments in planning process

Large-scale datacentres will face mandatory environmental assessments before they can go ahead, the Scottish government has announced, amid growing public concern about the impact of the AI boom.

Ahead of a vote on a moratorium on new hyperscale datacentres in Holyrood on Wednesday, the Scottish government has tightened rules for new projects by requiring any above 50MW to submit environmental impact assessments, but stopped short of agreeing to an outright halt.