Margam Data Centre

The Challenge

WBE is a sustainable forestry-waste biomass plant based in Margam Port Talbot. It is interested in developing the Tyn-y-Caeau site for a 'nature positive' data centre as part of a wider strategy to diversify its current activities in an around the existing site as it’s green renewables (‘ROC”) subsidy expires in 2028.

Our Role

Acting as planning consultant, urban designers and masterplanners, we have led the design team in evolving a creative proposal that bridges the industrial and historic landscapes in which it sits, while responding to extensive green and blue infrastructure requirements sought by local planning policy.  This has necessitated creative approaches to breaking down the mass, ‘greening’ the building, and making the landscape architecture work harder, to offset the loss of habitat resulting from a large footprint building.  This has included integrating the existing building (a ‘non-designated heritage asset’ in planning jargon) into the scheme for office functions, replacing trees on the site at a rate of three-for-one, integrated SuDS solutions and site-wide habitat replacement and enhancement to achieve ‘net benefits for biodiversity’.  

The Outcome

The proposal - a data centre powered by an existing biomass plant - can reduce strain on the grid whilst securing jobs in at the existing biomass plant, which sits in an area that has been hit
hard by changes at Tata Steel. The survival of the facility by undertaking this investment and associated infrastructure of c£100-150m will provide 33 new jobs, secure 27 direct jobs at the generation plant, and deliver a further 150 jobs currently within the local supply chain and harvesting operations.