Plans Advance for Epic UK Data Center

European data center developer e-shelter has completed the purchase of a 50-acre site in Saunderton to build what it says will be the UK's largest data center complex. e-shelter hopes to build an 829,000 square foot building that will house more than 400,000 square feet of finished data center space.

e-shelter, which operates several data centers in Germany, says it expects the first stage of its four-stage development plan to be completed by mid-2010. The effort is being backed by the PFB Data Centre Fund, a vehicle created by UK commercial property investors Pinder Fry & Benjamin.

Plans for the Saunderton campus call for 100 megawatts of power from two separate grid points, and a design intended to make it the first UK data center to qualify for gold LEED (Leader in Engineering & Environmental Design) accreditation.

“The UK has always been an important target to break into for e-shelter as a company and we have some ambitious plans,” said Phillip Lydford, chief executive of e-shelter UK. "e-shelter has worked closely with Wycombe District Council in the design and planning of the new facility, as it is important that we handle this development
sensitively and as far as possible blend it into its rural surroundings. The Saunderton
location’s proximity to London allows networks in the capital to benefit from near real-time replication of databases in the new facility, thereby avoiding any latency problems.”

“We see strong potential for growth in the data centre sector and are partnering with e-shelter both in the UK and in Europe to capture this potential," said Ed Williams, chief executive of Pinder Fry & Benjamin. "e-shelter is a first class data centre specialist and Saunderton will be a first class data centre campus."