District Council approves AWS' Didcot, UK, data center

AWS has secured the approval of its two-building data center development on the Didcot Power Station from the Vale of White Horse District Council’s planning committee. The data center project was first proposed in 2019. Following local feedback and Covid-19 delays, the Company decided to reduce the height of one of the data center buildings to a single story. It also reduced the number of generators from 54 to 34.

The two-story building will have up to 224,000 square feet of space, while the single-story building will have 94,000 square feet of space. Also, the building is projected to provide close to 100 jobs in the area. However, some locals fear that it might lead to increased traffic.

The ward councilor of Sutton Courtenay, Richard Webber, said that the land had been reserved for industrial and commercial use on the local plans. He further noted that the area needs data centers. Because data centers usually cause less traffic than other establishments, then the development of the data center is acceptable in principle, he said.