A data center development in Hayes, Middlesex, which looks set to host tape storage infrastructure for Amazon Web Services (AWS), has been given the go-ahead.

Hillingdon Borough Council has approved the plan for a two-story data center at Unit 4, Silverdale Industrial Estate, off Silverdale Road in Hayes, but said the company would have to pay more than £500,000 ($646,270) to offset the facility’s emissions and impact on the community.

An existing warehouse building will be demolished to make way for the data center.

The data center has been proposed by Marvell Developments LLC. An end-user has not been disclosed for the site, but the design and access statement for the project refers to the “AWS data center supply chain.”

The statement also says that the “operator for the proposed data center plans to invest £8 billion ($10.34bn) over the next five years” in UK data centers. AWS announced an £8 billion investment plan for the UK last September.

Little information is available about Marvell Developments, but an organization of a similar name representing Amazon was involved in developing a data center site in Virginia’s Culpepper County in 2022. DCD has contacted AWS for comment.

The Hayes site will be a 1,914 sqm (20,602 sq ft) development with multiple data halls, an electrical plant room, offices, an emergency generator, and a pumphouse.

Precise power requirements for the facility have not been revealed, but the design and access statement says: “This data center will be a data repository which requires significantly less power consumption than typical data centers. This building will be designed to house tape media that provides a long-term data storage solution for our customers.”

Because of this, the data center “will have a negligible cooling water demand (< 150 m3 per annum) and lower operational power demand,” the statement said. The site will host just one backup generator providing 1.08MW.

The council said Marvell would have to pay £535,328 ($691,938) for local services as part of the planning approval. This includes £70,024 ($90,509) for air quality mitigation and £29,700 ($38,388) towards travel improvements.”

As the plan fails to meet the London Plan environmental standards, the developer must also pay £435,064 ($562,342) to offset carbon dioxide emissions.

Hayes is already home to data center developments including a campus being planned by Colt DCS that was announced last year.