Bromley has ruled that a data centre proposed on green belt land at Charmwood Lane, Green Street Green, needs a full assessment. No application is lodged yet.

Bromley Council has decided that a proposed data centre on green belt land off Charmwood Lane, Green Street Green, cannot be determined without a full environmental impact assessment.

The decision was issued on 21 July 2026 under reference 26/02508/EIA, on land at Charmwood Farm, Charmwood Lane, Orpington, BR6 7SA, in Darwin ward. The council’s answer on the register is blunt: EIA REQUIRED.

No planning application for the data centre itself had appeared on Bromley’s register when we checked on 13 September.

What has actually been lodged

What the developer submitted on 19 June was a screening opinion request, not an application. A screening opinion is a formal question put to the council under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017: is this project big enough, or sensitive enough, that any application must come with an environmental statement?

Bromley’s answer was yes. The record shows:

  • request received and validated: 19 June 2026
  • consultation closed: 15 July 2026
  • decision made: 20 July 2026, issued 21 July
  • decided by: delegated decision, meaning officers, not a committee
  • documents on the file: 8
Timeline of the Charmwood Farm data centre screening opinion: 19 June 2026 screening request received and validated with 8 documents; 15 July consultation closes; 20 July decision that an environmental impact assessment is required, taken by officers under delegated powers and issued 21 July; 13 September 2026, still no planning application on the register
Graphic by Bromley Online, from Bromley Council's planning register.

That is the whole of the formal process so far. The screening opinion does not grant anything and does not refuse anything. What it does is raise the bar for whatever comes next: an application would have to arrive with an environmental statement covering matters such as landscape, noise, water and traffic, and that statement is consulted on alongside it.

Source for the record: the PlanIt entry for 26/02508/EIA, which mirrors Bromley’s own register. The council’s public register page for the application is a Salesforce app that will not open without JavaScript, so it is linked here for the record rather than as something you can easily read.

The site is green belt, and that is checkable

The government’s own planning data platform confirms the designation. A point query on the application’s coordinates returns a single green belt entity, recorded against the London Borough of Bromley (planning.data.gov.uk, green belt dataset, entity 610169). The same query on Bromley town centre returns nothing, because the town itself is not green belt.

Charmwood Lane runs east off the A21 between Green Street Green and Pratts Bottom. The A21 is called Sevenoaks Road as it passes through Green Street Green, which is how the MP describes the location. The site is:

  • about 0.7 miles from the Green Street Green crossroads
  • about 2.2 miles from Orpington High Street
  • about 2.5 miles from Orpington station
  • about 5.7 miles from Bromley town centre

Distances are straight-line, calculated from the application’s own coordinates. This is not a Bromley town story, and it is not walking distance from Orpington either.

What the MP has said

Gareth Bacon, the Conservative MP for Orpington, has posted twice about the proposal on his own website. On 1 September he wrote that “our precious green belt in Orpington is facing more serious threat, this time from a proposed new data centre off Sevenoaks Road”, and that the plans show “a two-storey building covering around 15,000 square meters and standing about 20 metres high”, with “backup power equipment, electrical infrastructure, and water storage”. He called it “entirely inappropriate and we will fight it” (garethbacon.com).

On 4 September he thanked constituents who had contacted him and repeated the figures, adding: “We’re keeping a very close eye on this.”

Those dimensions are the MP’s account of the plans. They are not in the council’s published register entry, and the screening documents themselves are held on the register that will not open to a browser without JavaScript, so we have not been able to read them directly. If the figures are right, 15,000 square metres is roughly two and a half football pitches of floorspace, and 20 metres is about the height of a six-storey block.

What happens next

There is no consultation to respond to yet, because there is no application. The sequence from here would normally be:

  1. the developer prepares an environmental statement, which can take months
  2. an application is submitted with that statement attached
  3. the council validates it and opens a public consultation, usually 21 days from the site notice
  4. neighbours within a set distance are written to, and the application is advertised
  5. officers assess it, and the file records whether it is decided by officers under delegated powers or referred to a Plans Sub-Committee

Nothing in the July decision commits the council to any view on the merits. It commits the developer to doing more work first.

What it means for you

If you live in Green Street Green, Chelsfield, Pratts Bottom or Downe, a comment made today is not registered against anything, because there is nothing to register it against. What the council’s own guidance tells you about the stage that is coming is worth knowing now (Bromley Council, viewing and commenting on planning applications):

  • The council “usually” writes only to neighbours adjoining the site. On a site this rural that is a very small number of households. Wider publicity comes through a site notice or a newspaper advert, so watch for those.
  • 21 days is normally given for comments, and the council will normally accept representations up to the day of the decision.
  • Anonymous objections cannot be considered, and objections without an address “cannot normally be given any weight”.
  • Your comment is published on the council’s website, with signature, email address and phone number redacted.
  • The council says it does not notify anyone of expected decision dates. You have to check the register yourself.
  • Comments must be about planning matters. On a scheme like this that means green belt harm, landscape and visual impact, noise, traffic, drainage, water use and energy infrastructure. Disturbance during building work and private covenants are explicitly out.

We explain how the borough’s system works, and where each stage is published, on our Bromley planning applications page.

We will report the application when it lands, from the documents rather than from anyone’s summary of them.

Sources