At a glance
- The deal, reported by Data Center Dynamics, would be the firm's second sale of land for hyperscale development; the first was the 2024 disposal to Microsoft at Skelton Grange in Leeds for $106.6 million.
- Harworth says the site under exclusivity has excellent planning prospects and an accepted power connection offer.
- Earlier this month, Harworth said it was in advanced negotiations with several companies.
Harworth Group has entered an exclusivity agreement for a powered land sale in the UK, with a counterparty it names only as a leading data center provider. The deal, reported by Data Center Dynamics, would be the firm's second sale of land for hyperscale development; the first was the 2024 disposal to Microsoft at Skelton Grange in Leeds for $106.6 million.
Harworth says the site under exclusivity has excellent planning prospects and an accepted power connection offer. It has not disclosed where the site is or how large it is.
Earlier this month, Harworth said it was in advanced negotiations with several companies. This week's announcement moves one of those conversations into a formal exclusivity period.
Six sites, 800MW of potential
The full pipeline goes beyond that site. Harworth says it could deliver up to six hyperscale data centers across its portfolio. Two more sites have accepted power connection offers totaling 400MW. One site has a potential power connection offer of 100MW, with a formal offer expected later. Another has enough anticipated power availability, in Harworth's words, to deliver a hyperscale data center.
All six sites are owned freehold, controlled through options, or held in partnerships, and all but one are already in the planning system. Beyond hyperscale, Harworth sees room for smaller digital infrastructure across its portfolio, including colocation and edge facilities. The company owns or manages more than 15,000 acres across more than 100 sites in the North of England and the Midlands, including industrial developments in Leeds, Liverpool, Bolton, Sheffield, and Northampton.
Chief executive Lynda Shillaw frames the exclusivity agreement as a repeat of the 2024 model: "a compelling opportunity to invest in powered land for data centers, having established a strong track record in this area with our first powered land sale in 2024 for a hyperscale data center and now our entering into an exclusivity agreement for a second hyperscale transaction."
The UK land-bank play
For investors underwriting UK digital infrastructure, Harworth is an early marker of where capacity will come from. The power connection offers are the gating item; the land carries the right to grid capacity. That right is the scarce resource in the UK data center buildout.
The Skelton Grange sale to Microsoft priced a powered site at $106.6 million. If the new transaction closes, it gives the market a second data point on what UK powered land is worth. Harworth's willingness to put a second site under exclusivity suggests the first sale's economics did not discourage it.
The structure matters too. Harworth is selling land, not building data centers, so construction, leasing, and operating risk fall to the provider. For a real estate firm, that is a straightforward sale of that right. For a hyperscaler or colocation operator, it is a way to secure land with accepted power connections without joining the grid queue.
The unnamed provider is the key missing piece. Without a name, the market cannot fully price the deal; the length of the exclusivity period and the eventual sale price will say more. If Harworth realizes its 800MW landbank, that would be a meaningful slice of UK data center capacity in a market where access to power is the limiting factor.
The AWS UK region expansion, reported the same day, shows hyperscaler capital is still moving. Harworth's powered land is the kind of asset that turns that capex into sites.
Reported by the Data centers & fiber desk from Data Center Dynamics. Published . Corrections