Summary
- Harworth has signed exclusivity with a data centre provider over its second hyperscale powered-land transaction.
- Six identified sites include 0.8GW of accepted connection offers, another 0.1GW indication, and a sixth location with anticipated power availability.
- The strategy monetises land after power and planning work rather than requiring Harworth to finance and operate the data centres itself.
Harworth has signed an exclusivity agreement with a data centre provider over a second hyperscale powered-land sale and expanded its identified pipeline to as many as six large data centre sites.
Harworth Group said the second site has what it describes as strong planning prospects and an accepted power connection offer. The company has not disclosed the location, prospective buyer, or transaction value.
The agreement advances a process that was still at the negotiation stage earlier this month. DataCentral reported on 6 August that Harworth had entered advanced discussions over a second hyperscale site; exclusivity now narrows that process to a specific provider.
More significant is the scale Harworth has attached to the wider portfolio. The company says it can target up to six hyperscale data centre land sales across sites it owns freehold, controls through options, or holds through partnerships.
The first two sites — Microsoft’s Skelton Grange project and the location now under exclusivity — have accepted power connection offers totalling 0.4GW. Two further sites have another 0.4GW of accepted connection offers.
A fifth site has a written indication for a 0.1GW connection, with a formal offer expected later, while Harworth says a sixth location has anticipated power availability sufficient for a hyperscale data centre.
That gives the identified portfolio at least 0.8GW of accepted connection offers plus a further 0.1GW at a less advanced stage, before any capacity attached to the sixth site is counted. Harworth also says there may be scope to secure more power at the first two locations.
All but one of the six sites are already moving through the planning system, with stakeholder engagement beginning on the remaining location.
The model is notable because Harworth is not proposing to become a data centre operator. Its strategy is to move land through the difficult early stages — site assembly, power, planning, remediation, and enabling works — and sell the powered development opportunity to an operator or hyperscale customer.
That shifts some of the most difficult pre-development risk onto a land specialist while leaving the much larger capital requirement for buildings, electrical plant, cooling systems, and IT fit-out to the eventual buyer.
Skelton Grange provides the template. Harworth’s first hyperscale transaction was a roughly £106m two-plot powered-land sale to Microsoft, accompanied by a development agreement under which Harworth carries out enabling works. The planning application covers around 500,000 sq ft across three data centre halls and associated buildings.
Powered land has become increasingly valuable because a site without a credible connection timetable can remain commercially unusable regardless of its size or planning status. In the current market, the connection offer can be as important as the land title.
Harworth’s expanding pipeline also shows why developers with former industrial and regeneration sites have become more relevant to data centre growth. Large brownfield locations may already have transport access, industrial planning history, and proximity to electricity infrastructure that is difficult to reproduce on a greenfield site.
None of those advantages guarantees a hyperscale sale. Connection offers still carry conditions and delivery programmes, planning can change, operators can alter deployment plans, and a buyer still has to justify billions of pounds of downstream infrastructure expenditure in the largest cases.
The latest update nevertheless moves Harworth beyond a single successful Microsoft transaction. It is now treating powered land as a repeatable asset class within its portfolio, with a near- and medium-term sales pipeline rather than one exceptional deal.
The next tests will be whether exclusivity on the second site converts into a completed sale and how quickly the other four identified locations can move from power and planning work into contracts with operators.
