THE go-ahead has been given for a massive, 50,000 sq ft unit on the Worcester Six Business Park, making it one of the largest in Europe.

Planning permission has been granted for IONOS, a European data management company, to build the massive unit at the business park, which they say will create jobs for the county.

When built, the data centre will take up a total of 51,479 sq ft comprising of the 38,501 sq ft IONOS site plus 12,978 sq ft for offices.

Achim Weiss, IONOS CEO, said: "We are thrilled to start construction of the Worcester Six data centre soon.

"The demand for cloud services has been growing even more in these difficult times and with our new site we will be able to provide a variety of hosting, computing, and storage solutions to customers across the UK.

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"We are very grateful that Wychavon District Council has approved our application so quickly."

The development is on behalf of 1&1 IONOS Ltd, which provides web-hosting services and cloud solutions for small to medium enterprise businesses. Stoford have said it anticipates completion of the unit in summer 2021.

Edward Peel, development manager at Stoford, said: “The approval for the IONOS development will bring another world-class operator to Worcester Six, which recognises the strategic location, excellent infrastructure links, and talented workforce that businesses can draw upon.

“We believe this is the first data centre to come to Wychavon and it is a clear indication of the confidence that IONOS, which is the largest cloud and hosting provider in Europe, has for the area, and for the business park."

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Cllr Richard Morris, Deputy Leader and portfolio holder for economic growth at Wychavon District Council, added: "IONOS choosing Wychavon as a base for their new data centre and offices is a tremendous vote of confidence in our local economy and will create high quality jobs in a growth industry."

County councillor Ken Pollock, cabinet member with responsibility for economy and infrastructure, said: "We look forward to working with IONOS, as a potential new occupier of the Worcester Six Business Park.

"This news is testament to the teams who have worked tirelessly in the most difficult of circumstances to maintain the county’s extensive progress in the business development and growth area.

Stoford also obtained consent for a speculative unit of 37,000 sq ft in February this year, which it says can be delivered within a 10-month period.