Glencar has started piling for the West Cold Shell of Pure Data Centres’ 70MW LON01B2 facility at Brent Cross in North London, moving the final major construction phase of the campus into structural delivery. Pure DC says more than £1bn is being invested across the wider LON01 campus, which will reach 90MW when Building 2 is completed. The 23,186 sq m B2 facility is scheduled for completion in Q2 2029.
The piling milestone converts another part of London’s large data-centre development pipeline into physical construction. Pure DC Brent Cross was already identified as one of the capital’s strongest live schemes in LCM’s London Data Centre Pipeline 2027, where the distinction between planning, secured power and work actually reaching site remains critical.
Piling works underway on the West Shell of Pure DC’s 70MW LON01B2 facility at Brent Cross in North London, marking the structural phase of the campus’s final major build programme. Image: Glencar Construction.
Glencar Moves LON01B2 Into Structural Construction
Pure DC announced the piling start on 3 September, following Glencar’s appointment in May to deliver the West Cold Shell of Building 2. The current milestone is specifically the start of piling and foundations for the West Shell. It should not be described as the start of the entire Brent Cross development: Building 1 is already operational and the adjacent East Cold Shell is further advanced and undergoing fit-out.
Glencar’s confirmed package covers piling and foundations, underground services and associated works, the structural frame and connections to the East Cold Shell, concrete and slab works, stair cores, the building envelope and roofing.
Roy Jones, Managing Director of London and the South at Glencar, said: “Seeing piling get underway marks the transition into the structural phase of the programme.” The work is being undertaken inside a live operational data-centre campus, meaning structural construction on the West Shell has to be coordinated with existing operations and fit-out activity elsewhere on the site.
90MW Campus Has Power and Planning Secured
Pure DC’s Brent Cross campus occupies 8.92 acres and comprises two data-centre buildings. Building 1 provides 20MW across four operational data halls, while Building 2 will provide another 70MW when fully delivered. The developer states that the campus has full planning permission and power secured for the complete 90MW capacity. That makes Brent Cross materially different from many schemes sitting in the wider UK pipeline where planning permission and proposed investment still have to be converted into grid availability and physical construction.
That delivery distinction is increasingly important as data centres become part of London’s critical infrastructure construction market. LCM’s London Data Centre CNI Market Report tracks how power, cooling, resilience and commissioning are becoming as important to programme certainty as the shell itself.
LON01 is being designed around closed-loop liquid cooling capable of supporting high-density AI inference and cloud workloads. Pure DC also reports an average annualised PUE of 1.29 and says HVO has replaced diesel for backup generation across the campus. Building 2 is also planned to carry one of the world’s largest living walls, with more than 750,000 plants wrapping the building next to Brent Reservoir’s Site of Special Scientific Interest. The developer says the wall is intended to reduce noise and air pollution while supporting biodiversity.
LCM Analysis: £1bn Is the Campus Investment, Not Glencar’s Contract
The £1bn-plus headline requires an important commercial distinction. Pure DC describes this as the projected investment across the wider Brent Cross campus over its construction period. It is not the published value of Glencar’s West Cold Shell contract.
The exact contract value for Glencar’s current package is not publicly confirmed in the latest primary announcements. Likewise, the current West Cold Shell scope should not be treated as the full value or scope of Building 2: detailed MEP, power, cooling, IT fit-out and commissioning packages are not identified as part of Glencar’s published cold-shell scope.
For the construction supply chain, the significance of this milestone is therefore that a major powered London data-centre project has moved from contractor appointment into verified structural work. Foundations, structural steel, concrete, envelope and roofing now form the visible delivery programme, while the specialist systems required to energise, fit out and commission 70MW of capacity represent a separate part of the route to operation.
Pure DC Expects £215m Construction Boost for Brent
Pure DC says the overall campus has already created more than 1,500 jobs and is expected to generate 3,380 job-years of employment, including local apprenticeships. It estimates the construction phase will contribute £215m to Brent’s GDP.
Those figures relate to the campus programme rather than the newly started Glencar package alone. Specific subcontract awards or job opportunities associated with the West Cold Shell have not been publicly confirmed in the latest project announcements.
The distinction between real site activity and the much larger announced market is also central to LCM’s £100bn UK Data Centre Pipeline analysis, which found that a significant volume of proposed investment remains dependent on power, procurement and mobilisation before it becomes construction workload.
What Happens Next?
Glencar will now progress piling and foundations into underground services, structural framing, connections with the East Cold Shell, concrete slabs, stair cores, envelope and roofing as the West Shell takes shape. No intermediate dates for structural completion, energisation or fit-out have been publicly confirmed. The next firm programme milestone remains completion of the wider LON01B2 facility in Q2 2029, when Pure DC expects Brent Cross to reach its full 90MW campus capacity.
|
Expert Verification & Authorship: Mihai Chelmus
Founder, London Construction Magazine | Construction Testing & Investigation Specialist |
