• The full application covers two data-centre buildings, substations, external plant and highway works on a three-acre brownfield site in Newton Heath
  • Dedicated grid substations and measures to limit noise near homes put power infrastructure and site design into the same planning review

The fact

Latos Data Centres has submitted a full planning application to Manchester City Council for a two-building data centre on a three-acre brownfield site off Bower Street in Newton Heath, east Manchester. Application PLA-2026-001350 was received and validated on 14 August and is under consultation. It covers two commercial units, external plant, substations, boundary fencing, landscaping, highway access works and ancillary infrastructure.

Latos describes the project as a Neural Edge data centre for AI and other low-latency workloads. Consultation material says the site would connect to the grid through new dedicated substations, use closed-loop cooling and position the data halls furthest from neighbouring homes. Construction is expected to take about 18 months if permission is granted. Founded in 2021, Latos is developing a UK data-centre portfolio, with its first facility under construction in Stockton-on-Tees.

The assessment

On a three-acre urban site, Latos has little room to treat power and plant as separate from the building design. The substations, cooling equipment, access and acoustic treatment all have to fit around nearby homes and the canal as part of the same planning application.

That makes the planning process a practical test of Latos’s edge model. The company wants to put compute closer to users, but an urban location also limits where large or noisy supporting equipment can go. Latos has set the data halls away from homes, screened external plant and proposed dedicated substations. If Manchester requires changes to those elements, the scheme may need to be redesigned before construction starts.

For BTW readers, the question is how much of Latos’s proposed edge-site layout survives planning intact. The council’s decision and any conditions attached to it will show whether the power, cooling and plant design can move into construction as submitted.

What to watch

Watch Manchester City Council's decision and any conditions covering power infrastructure, noise, landscaping or access. Those conditions will show whether the submitted layout can proceed largely as designed or needs changes before construction. A later construction start would then show whether Latos can turn planning consent into its stated 18-month build programme.