Summary
- More than 1,200 objections have been lodged against ILI Group’s proposed Cato data centre near Auchtertool in Fife.
- The £5 billion scheme is expected to include 600MW of capacity, data halls, substations, and supporting plant.
- The opposition shows how Scotland’s data centre ambitions are running into local questions over land, power, heat, noise, and water.
More than 1,200 objections have been lodged against ILI Group’s proposed £5 billion Cato data centre near Auchtertool in Fife, intensifying scrutiny of one of Scotland’s largest hyperscale development plans.
The proposed 600MW scheme would include large data halls, electricity substations, and associated plant. Cato is intended to form part of ILI Group’s wider Stoics network, alongside the proposed 540MW Rufus project in East Ayrshire and the 400MW Aurelius development in North Lanarkshire.
Together, the three schemes would represent around 1.5GW of potential Scottish data centre capacity and about £15 billion of investment. The objections against Cato focus on the size of the project, its rural location, heat, noise, resource demand, and the pressure a large power-intensive facility could place on local infrastructure and landscape.
Renewable power does not settle planning
Scotland has several qualities that make it attractive for data centre developers: renewable generation, cooler ambient conditions, available land in some regions, and political interest in digital infrastructure. Those factors help explain the Stoics concept, but they do not settle the planning case for an individual community.
A 600MW data centre is a major industrial development. Its electrical infrastructure, backup systems, cooling plant, access roads, security requirements, and construction works all create local effects. The fact that the facility may use renewable electricity does not remove concerns over visual impact, noise, construction traffic, land use, water, or the scale of substations and plant.
ILI Group has argued that the project could make productive use of renewable electricity that might otherwise be curtailed when generation exceeds grid capacity. It has also pointed to an approved Gate 2 grid position, separate water infrastructure, and economic analysis suggesting construction and operational benefits for Fife and Scotland.
Those points give the proposal a stronger infrastructure case than a purely speculative campus, but they still have to be tested through planning. Local residents and campaign groups are questioning whether the national and regional benefits justify the effect on a small rural community. Auchtertool has a population of about 250 people, making the physical contrast with a 600MW hyperscale development especially stark.
Community consent becomes a capacity constraint
The Cato objections fit a wider pattern across Europe. Data centres are no longer invisible digital infrastructure. Larger campuses bring buildings, substations, generators, cooling equipment, perimeter fencing, fuel systems, road changes, and years of construction activity. As projects grow, local consent becomes as important to capacity delivery as land acquisition or grid allocation.
The pressure is amplified by AI demand. Developers can point to national compute needs, investment, tax revenue, and digital competitiveness, yet communities often experience the most immediate costs through construction disruption, landscape change, and uncertainty over energy and water use. The benefits are often dispersed while the physical footprint is local.
Scotland’s data centre opportunity therefore depends on more than renewable electricity. It needs planning routes that can handle very large industrial digital projects, grid strategies that do not inflame public concern over energy allocation, and local benefit packages that are specific enough to withstand scrutiny.
The Cato decision will be watched across the UK market. Approval could support Scotland’s case as a major hyperscale destination, though likely with conditions around water, noise, heat, construction management, and local infrastructure. Refusal would raise harder questions over whether rural Scotland can host campuses at the scale proposed by the Stoics network.
Either outcome will affect how future developers approach the country. Grid progress can put a project on the map, but without a planning case that survives local opposition, the megawatts remain theoretical.
