Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council granted full planning permission for the Wilton data centre at the former Invista industrial site on 29 October 2026. The consent, application R/2026/0337/FFM, allows Digital Reef GB001 Limited and Sembcorp Utilities UK to develop a data-centre campus at Wilton International, south-west of Redcar. It is an issued decision notice, not merely a committee recommendation or an announcement of investment intentions.
The Wilton data centre will occupy approximately 15.5 hectares of previously developed industrial land. The council’s officer report assessed up to 75,000 square metres of development, including data halls, power and communications buildings, ancillary offices, electrical infrastructure and backup generation. The buildings would generally stand around 15 metres high, with a maximum height of 20 metres according to the submitted description.
For planning professionals, the significance is the conversion of a very large former chemicals-industry plot into digital infrastructure within an established industrial estate. The permission comes as separate Teesside power-network and data-centre projects attract attention. Those projects must not be confused with this specific consent: a proposed National Grid substation at Dorman Point is a different application and is not authorised by the Wilton decision.
Why the Wilton data centre was supported
The council’s official application record and issued permission establish the decisive date as 29 October, five days before this report. That matters: the operative planning stage is the grant itself, not the date another website first noticed it. The application was validated on 8 May and determined under delegated powers, rather than by a fresh vote of the planning committee.
The Wilton site sits on the north-western edge of a much larger industrial complex. Former chemical and processing activities have left land capable of redevelopment, although they also create contamination and servicing questions. The council considered the project consistent with its policies supporting employment land, technological investment and the established South Tees industrial cluster. This is a consent for new buildings, not a general change of use of an existing warehouse.
The Wilton data centre is described as Use Class B8 in the formal decision notice. That label is part of the council’s approved description and should not be treated as proof that every data-centre operation everywhere is automatically B8. Different premises and supporting uses can require their own use-class analysis. Planning Geek’s Use Class B8 guide explains the broader storage and distribution framework.
The proposal includes a medium-voltage distribution building, an on-site high-voltage substation, transformers, chillers and a consolidated compound accommodating up to eight backup generators. Access would use existing and new entrances within the Wilton estate, with security and landscaping around the campus. The officer report makes clear that some external plant was repositioned during the assessment, reducing the original roof-level concentration.
Power demand, cooling and greenhouse gases
Large data centres bring important questions about electricity demand, water, heat and emergency generation. For the Wilton data centre, the planning report records an air-handling cooling strategy using outside air where temperatures permit, with supplemental mechanical cooling. The developer presents this as a way to reduce water consumption, but the practical performance of the systems will need to be judged against the approved arrangements.
The council’s Greener Futures team considered the submitted energy statement and noted efforts to keep emissions below the average expected for this type of development. It also asked for potential reuse of waste heat to be considered. Those comments must not be mistaken for a binding promise that heat will be supplied to nearby homes. The formal consent instead requires a greenhouse-gas assessment before any part of the completed development becomes operational.
The Wilton data centre approval does not prove that all necessary electricity capacity is already secured, nor that generators may operate without any separate environmental permits. Officers expressly considered the relationship between planning control and other regulatory regimes. The Environment Agency raised matters potentially requiring separate permissions, and planning consent does not displace those requirements.
Contaminated land, drainage and biodiversity
The former industrial use gives the pre-commencement safeguards particular weight. The notice requires a phased remediation plan, investigation of potential contamination and verification that each completed remediation stage has achieved its objectives. If previously unidentified contamination is discovered, the affected works may need to stop until an acceptable investigation and remediation response has been approved.
Surface-water drainage is another substantial condition. Officers required detailed runoff control, flood-storage calculations, maintenance arrangements and protection for nearby watercourses. Kettle Beck lies along the western boundary and Kinkerdale Beck follows the northern boundary. These are not optional matters to be tidied up after the data halls are occupied, and the Wilton data centre cannot begin ordinary construction before specified details are approved.
The permission also requires a biodiversity gain plan to be approved before commencement, together with a habitat management and monitoring plan providing for long-term management. The condition refers to a 30-year management period. That gives a practical example of how industrial brownfield redevelopment still needs to address habitat losses and improvements. Planning Geek’s biodiversity net gain guide sets out the general English framework.
Jobs, traffic and nearby communities
The council’s Business Growth team welcomed what it called the project’s potential to bring significant inward investment to the local economy
. Its report refers to an estimated 600 to 1,000 construction jobs over 18 to 36 months and up to 200 operational posts. Local recruitment percentages and wider supply-chain employment figures are aspirations or estimates in the supporting material, not jobs guaranteed by a planning condition.
National Highways and council highway officers reviewed revised traffic forecasts, shift arrangements and assumptions for key junctions. The approval requires a construction traffic management plan, a construction worker travel plan, an operational management plan and an updated travel plan. These controls are important for a round-the-clock industrial activity even where daily vehicle movements may be lower than those generated by some other large commercial uses.
Residents raised concerns about noise, emissions, water consumption and cumulative activity around the industrial estate. The council concluded that the effects could be made acceptable subject to conditions and other regulatory controls. The permission should not be read as a finding that those concerns were imaginary; the conclusion depends on compliance with the mitigation and management arrangements evaluated.
What happens before the campus can operate
The Wilton data centre has a real full planning permission dated 29 October, with a three-year commencement limit, but development is not automatically ready to begin. Separate conditions require approval of ground levels, drainage, contamination measures, construction arrangements and other details. A later greenhouse-gas assessment must be approved before operation. The original notice and the council’s planning officer assessment explain the safeguards.
It is also important to distinguish this approval from the proposed Teesside substation at Dorman Point. That separate land transaction and associated outline planning application do not represent an additional consent for the Wilton campus. In the current rush to build data-centre capacity, each site, grid connection, approval and delivery stage needs its own documentary evidence.
The wider lesson is that an appropriate industrial location and economic support may make a large digital project acceptable in principle, but they do not remove the need to resolve traffic, contamination, water and ecological impacts. The Wilton data centre now has a consent against which those next stages can be assessed, rather than merely a developer’s statement of ambition.
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