Summary
- Maska Group is consulting on an 18,220 sq m two-storey data centre near Mwyndy Cross in Rhondda Cynon Taf.
- The scheme includes a three-storey office block, servicing and energy plant, chillers, access, parking, drainage, and landscaping.
- Power requirements and IT capacity have not yet been detailed, leaving the main infrastructure question unresolved.
A planning consultation is under way for an 18,220 sq m data centre near Mwyndy Cross in Rhondda Cynon Taf, adding another proposed digital infrastructure scheme to South Wales.
The application has been brought forward by Maska Group for vacant land east of the A4119, near the M4 and outside the village of Miskin. The proposal covers a single two-storey data centre building, a three-storey office block, servicing and energy plant, chillers, access, parking, drainage, landscaping, and associated works.
A design and access statement prepared for the scheme places the site on the eastern side of Mwyndy Cross, on the outskirts of Talbot Green near Llantrisant. The site covers approximately 4.65 hectares and has historically been used for agriculture, including hay storage and sheep grazing.
The consultation is scheduled to run until 13 July. The proposed IT capacity and power requirement have not been disclosed in the material reviewed, leaving the most important infrastructure number absent from the public case. Floor area shows the scale of a building; megawatts show the scale of a data centre.
The Welsh pitch is still forming
South Wales is trying to build a stronger data centre proposition around land, regeneration, power access, and policy support. The UK government’s AI Growth Zone designation gives the region a clearer national frame for compute-related development, but the designation does not make individual projects shovel-ready.
Each scheme still has to move through planning, grid connection, drainage, ecology, traffic, construction, and local-impact assessment. Developers also need to show whether the project is aimed at enterprise colocation, hyperscale cloud, high-density AI, or a staged mix of uses. Those different models can produce very different electrical and mechanical requirements inside similar-looking buildings.
The Mwyndy Cross proposal is smaller than some UK campus plans, but its plant and servicing elements are still central. Chillers, energy plant, service yards, security, drainage, and access routes shape how the facility will operate every hour of the day. Planning authorities will need enough technical detail to assess noise, visual impact, resilience, and infrastructure readiness.
South Wales has an opportunity to attract digital infrastructure outside the most congested UK clusters, where grid capacity and land constraints are already acute. The region’s industrial history and proximity to major transport routes can support that case. It will still have to compete on connection dates, power cost, planning confidence, and customer demand.
Megawatts decide the impact
The missing power figure matters because the same footprint can house very different load profiles. A lower-density enterprise facility may have moderate plant requirements, while an AI-focused building could create far higher power and cooling intensity. Without the IT load, it is difficult to assess the grid impact, plant scale, backup strategy, and heat rejection profile.
Cooling design will also be watched. The scheme includes chillers, which brings questions around acoustic treatment, heat rejection, maintenance access, operating hours, and performance in hotter weather. UK planning debates around data centres are increasingly moving beyond jobs and land use into mechanical plant, generator testing, and local amenity.
The design and access statement also sets out site features that will affect buildability, including slope, boundary vegetation, access arrangements, and ecological context. Data centres often look simple at render stage, but the civil engineering can be shaped heavily by platform levels, drainage, cabling, equipment yards, and security boundaries.
The South Wales AI Growth Zone label may help projects find political attention, but it can also raise expectations. A site promoted as part of a strategic digital infrastructure push will be expected to show credible power, cooling, and delivery evidence. Early consultation material that omits the main load figure leaves a gap that will have to be closed as the application progresses.
Rhondda Cynon Taf now has another test of how local planning handles data centre growth outside the established UK hubs. The decision will turn on ordinary infrastructure questions: where the electricity comes from, how the plant behaves, whether the site can absorb the building, and what the development changes for the area around it.
