UK Developer Wins Approval to Convert Lancashire Hotel Basement into Data Center

Real estate company Real Big Group has secured planning permission from Burnley Council to convert the underground car park of the Brunlea Hotel on Keirby Walk in Lancashire into a data center, a move that reflects the growing push to repurpose existing urban infrastructure for digital capacity as demand for edge and regional computing space continues to rise across the UK.

The application was submitted in July and permission was granted this month, according to local press reports. The basement area earmarked for the facility totals approximately 4,000 square meters (43,055 square feet), though full technical details of the planned data center have not been disclosed. It remains unclear whether any data center operators or specialist firms are currently involved in the project.

Close to £12 million ($16 million) is reportedly set to be invested in the conversion. According to submitted documents, the facility will employ a closed-loop cooling system, with cooling equipment located either within the roof enclosure or underground. The roof of the data center hosts several telecom antennas, adding a connectivity dimension to the site.

The Brunlea Hotel, formerly known as the Keirby Hotel, opened in 1960 and is a 66-year-old property now undergoing a broader facelift. Plans emerged in 2024 for a major redevelopment by Real Big Group to relaunch the site as a 32-room luxury hotel in 2027, with the data center conversion forming part of that wider repositioning strategy.

The project underscores a growing trend in the UK and across Europe of converting underutilized urban structures into data centers, particularly as land availability in city centers tightens and latency-sensitive workloads drive demand for distributed capacity. While the scale of the Lancashire facility is modest compared with hyperscale campuses, such conversions can serve edge computing, content delivery, and enterprise backup needs. The approval also highlights how local planning authorities are increasingly weighing digital infrastructure proposals against heritage and hospitality considerations in established town-center locations.