Summary
- Blackpool Council’s executive will consider further investment expenditure and prudential borrowing for the Airport Enterprise Zone on 14 September.
- HOCHTIEF Data Centre Partner UK has been appointed to develop the first exemplar Silicon Sands data centre.
- Further roads, airport works, and development plots are intended to unlock later phases of the wider Silicon Sands programme.
Blackpool Council is seeking approval for the next phase of infrastructure investment at Blackpool Airport Enterprise Zone as enabling work continues around the Silicon Sands data centre programme.
The council’s executive will be asked on 14 September to continue planned activities alongside the required investment expenditure and prudential borrowing.
The spending covers the wider enterprise-zone programme rather than the private construction cost of the first data centre. Roads, airport facilities, utility infrastructure, land release, and new commercial plots all form part of the work required to expand the development area.
A new road serving the eastern airport development was completed in July. The council now plans further units east of Blackpool Airport, with a detailed planning application expected later this year.
If approved, those buildings would help release land required for later Silicon Sands phases. The sequencing links conventional development infrastructure directly to the amount of data centre land that can be brought forward.
The first Silicon Sands facility has also moved into a more defined delivery phase. HOCHTIEF Data Centre Partner UK has been appointed to develop the initial exemplar data centre following a council-led procurement process.
The proposed facility will occupy the former fire station and engineering yard at Blackpool Airport together with the site of the old administration offices and security point. Older buildings have already been cleared, and a replacement administration and passenger facility was completed in 2025.
Earlier public-sector material put potential private investment associated with the first facility at up to £300m. The commercial structure is intended to transfer the investment, construction, and operating cost of the data centre to the private sector after the public-sector work needed to assemble and prepare the site.
That division of responsibilities makes the enabling programme central to the wider project. A specialist data centre developer cannot build out later capacity until roads, access, land parcels, and airport operations have been reorganised sufficiently to create deliverable sites.
Blackpool is also examining options to relocate and improve other airport facilities so additional land can be released without compromising the airport’s long-term operation.
Silicon Sands has been promoted around the combination of digital connectivity, local renewable-energy potential, and available development land. The proposition depends on those elements being converted into infrastructure that can support large and resilient electrical loads rather than remaining advantages on paper.
Data centre campuses require more than serviced plots. Grid connections, substations, backup generation, fibre, cooling, drainage, access roads, security, and construction logistics have to be accommodated alongside other uses across the enterprise zone.
The public borrowing therefore carries development risk. Infrastructure is being funded in anticipation of later private investment, meaning the commercial case depends on enough occupiers and capacity arriving to justify the upfront enabling expenditure.
The appointment of HOCHTIEF DCPUK reduces uncertainty around the first exemplar facility, but it does not by itself deliver the wider campus. Later phases remain dependent on the successful release of further land and infrastructure.
The council’s 14 September decision will determine whether the enterprise-zone programme continues with the next package of planned investment and borrowing. It will not constitute final planning or construction approval for every future Silicon Sands facility.
As the programme advances, the main delivery question is increasingly the order in which airport operations, roads, utility infrastructure, development plots, and the first data centre can be brought together without one workstream delaying the others.
