Lloyds Banking Group has struck a deal to build one of the UK’s largest data centre campuses.
The group is buying 50 acres at Deene, near Corby, Northamptonshire, where it intends to develop two data centres totalling more than 430,000 sq ft. It is buying the site from a consortium of landlords including Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency.
Plans for the circa £250m development have already been given the go-ahead by East Northamptonshire council. They replace proposals for a centre near Lockerbie, Dumfries & Galloway, which were scrapped last February, and a 250,000 sq ft site in Darlington, County Durham.
The Corby data centres will be brought forward in two phases, the first being a 288,000 sq ft site including 161,000 sq ft of net technical data centre space.
“There is a lot of potential new data centre activity going on,” said one agent. “Organisations have been constrained over recent years in making large capital expenditures on IT, but in many cases they can no longer make do with what they have.”
CBRE is acting for Lloyds.
? Olympic media centre bidder Infinity has completed a deal for telecommunications group Cable & Wireless to take 30,000 sq ft at Prologis Park in Heathrow. It has agreed a 15-year lease at around £200 per sq ft. GVA advised Infinity; Cable & Wireless was unrepresented.
nick.whitten@estatesgazette.com
