Investor backs Lockerbie global data farm proposal

Jul 3 2009 by Sharon Liptrott, Dumfries Standard Friday

AMBITIOUS proposals for a multi-million pound global data farm near Lockerbie have stepped up a gear.

Internet Villages International Ltd have formed a business partnership with APC by Schneider Electric and secured £600 million of capital investment from an unnamed investor.

The company has yet to submit formal plans to Dumfries and Galloway Council for its £1 billion, green-powered, 250 acre electronic data farm, ALBA1, in Annandale which could create 1,000 jobs.

The proposed data farm, housing server units and routers, is the vision of Internet Villages International – a consortium of people and companies, led by businessman and property developer Peter Hewkin.

He says a surge in interest from major world-wide companies needing somewhere to store and operate their electronic data has pushed the stakes even higher to get it up and running for 2010.

Mr Hewkin says that once the data farm is up and running it would represent a £1 billion investment with the construction side creating 400 jobs and then 600 IT jobs – bringing an influx of professionals to the region.

APC by Scheider will provide the technology and infrastructure for data centres in campus form over an initial 125 acres at Johnstonebridge, Ecclefechan.

They will be owned and operated by several different companies.

Industry pundits have predicted that the ALBA1 location, close to the M74, which includes around 100 acres earmarked for a 700-home eco-village, could be “one of the key newly emerging IT markets.”

According to Roland Chaplain, of the locally-based Digital Age Lifestyles Working Group, the M74 valley – which already has a planning application submitted by Lockerbie Data Centres Ltd for a 250,000 sq ft internet data centre, business park, and a 750-home sustainable village at Peelhouses – provides the incentive for a new IT centre to be created on the Crichton Campus.

He believes a major cluster of datacentres in the valley could potentially create more than 10,000 new jobs within 10 years.