Tech and AI
An edge data centre is filed on a three acre brownfield site in east Manchester
By Staff Writer | 23 August 2026
Two buildings, 28,000 sq ft and a target of 2030. The application is small by the standards of the sector, and it is the type of scheme most likely to appear next to somebody's housing.
Latos Data Centres has applied to Manchester City Council for a two-building data centre of 28,000 sq ft, about 2,601 sq m, on a three acre vacant brownfield site off Bower Street at Ten Acres Lane in Newton Heath, beside the Lowry Park industrial estate. The application reference is PLA-2026-001350. If it is granted, the company hopes the buildings will be operational by 2030. Targeted IT capacity has not been disclosed.
Manchester is a leading digital city, and this proposal supports its continued growth by providing the cutting-edge digital infrastructure Manchester needs.
Andrew Collin, Managing Director of Latos Data Centres
The scheme is described as part of a planned network the company calls neural edge, of which it says it wants 40 sites across Britain by 2030, on the claim that this would put no location more than 50 miles from the service. That is the developer's own ambition rather than a committed programme, and it is reported here as such. Create Architecture is leading the design and Euan Kellie Property Solutions is the planning consultant.
The scale is the point
An edge facility of this size sits at the opposite end of the market from the hyperscale campuses that generate the headlines. It is measured in tens of thousands of square feet rather than hundreds of thousands, it is meant to sit close to the users it serves, and it therefore goes on urban land beside existing industry and existing housing rather than on a remote powered plot.
The planning arguments that attach to a 28,000 sq ft building in an inner suburb are not the arguments that attach to a 500,000 sq ft shed on a former colliery, and the sector is about to discover that at volume.
Our ambition is to deliver a high-quality, sustainable data centre designed to meet rigorous environmental and safety standards. We are committed to being a responsible neighbour and will continue to engage with the community and the Council throughout the planning process and beyond.
Andrew Collin, Managing Director of Latos Data Centres
What a decision will turn on
Three things usually decide an application of this class, and none of them is the size of the building. The first is the grid position, because a data centre without a connection date is a shed with a programme risk attached. The second is plant noise, since cooling equipment runs continuously and the acoustic assessment on an urban site with residential receptors is where these applications are most often held up. The third is water, if the cooling design needs it.
None of those three positions has been made public for this site. Neither host read for this report gives the connection status, the cooling method or the acoustic position, and no figure for any of them is stated here. A decision is expected in the coming months.
For anyone pricing the work
A small edge building is not a small commissioning job. The mechanical and electrical content per square foot is closer to a hyperscale hall than to a warehouse, the resilience requirement is set by the operator rather than by the building regulations, and the witnessed testing at handover is where the programme is most at risk. On a site this tight, the sequence of the incoming supply, the standby generation and the cooling plant will decide whether the 2030 target survives contact with the connection date.