City’s tech hub needs more power for future growth

Nicholas Thomas, local democracy reporter

Major infrastructure could be installed in western Newport to support the area’s technological boom.

Vantage Data Centers Ltd has won planning permission to build a new electricity substation and install underground cabling in the Celtic Lakes industrial area, southwest of Duffryn.

A planning statement by agents AtkinsRealis describes the city as a “key growth area” for the digital sector, but claims any further developments at the Celtic Lakes site will require “an increase in power supply”.

Data centre

The new substation will power Vantage Data Centers’ “planned and existing sites” in Newport, including a “hyper-scale data centre campus”.

“Without the proposed infrastructure, the data centre campus could not expand to meet demand,” the agents argued in their planning statement. “The effects of this would be wide reaching, impacting the speed and reliability of cloud services that government, businesses and the public use and rely on to carry out day to day tasks and business critical functions.”

At a meeting of Newport City Council’s planning committee, case officer Adam Foote said the project is considered a “major development due to the overall size”.

The works could reach a maximum height of 9.4 metres, but will be offset by a proposed “compensation area” north of the M4, including trees, hedgerows and nesting boxes, he added.

Mr Foote said the development, if built, was unlikely to have any impact on the nearest residential properties – but said proposed planning conditions included limits on noise.

‘Flood free’

The site is considered “entirely flood-free” and the proposed works were expected to have only a “minor” impact on traffic, once the substation is up and running.

The proposed compensation area, meanwhile, will not result in the loss of any agricultural land, Mr Foote added.

Members of the committee voted unanimously to grant planning permission for the development, subject to several conditions.