Blackpool Airport Enterprise Zone and Silicon Sands

Located just off Blackpool’s seafront, Blackpool Airport boasts one of the UK’s most successful Enterprise Zones.

With growth of over 2,600 jobs already achieved, and an estimated £300m of additional private sector development potential, 25 acres of newly unlocked commercial land is primed for development for commercial use at the EZ’s Eastern Gateway. Accommodation within secure, landscaped plots (ranging from 15,000sq ft to 100,000sq ft) is available, with power, utilities and property access in place.

The EZ also includes the ground breaking Silicon Sands project with the potential to become a Strategic AI and Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Hub for Lancashire and an AI Growth zone. The EZ is positioned on the North Atlantic Loop, a major transatlantic fibre artery connecting America and Europe with the fastest speeds. This strategic location places Blackpool and Silicon Sands within the same availability zone as Dublin, one of Europe’s leading data centre hubs, ensuring ultra-low latency connectivity for AI, cloud, Edge and high-performance computing applications. Silicon Sands is directly connected via national fibre carriers to the UK’s main internet exchanges, including IX Manchester, IX Leeds and Linx London offering seamless low-latency access to hyperscale cloud providers and global AI infrastructure. Blackpool also benefits from its own ultra-low latency fibre network, which enables high-speed, high-bandwidth digital services with minimal latency—an essential requirement for next-generation AI, private 5G, and high-performance computing.

With the support of Lancaster University, Silicon Sands has been pioneering the concept of net-zero, sustainable data centres, leveraging immersion cooling technology and waste heat recovery. The project is shovel-ready, with an initial 2–6MW exemplar AI data centre set to launch, supplying recovered heat to the Sandcastle Water Park (eventually to become part of a wider District Heat network) one of the UK’s largest indoor water parks. This demonstrator will establish the foundation for the expansion of the Silicon Sands digital campus, with 32MW of power already available and a clear pathway to gigawatt-scale capacity by the early 2030s.

The project will capitalise on over three gigawatts of offshore wind power currently in development in the Irish Sea, set to come ashore at the EZ. By harnessing curtailed renewable energy, Silicon Sands presents a unique opportunity for Lancashire to emerge as a major AI Growth Zone, aligning directly with the UK Government’s ambition for regional AI hubs with pathways to 500MW+ of power. It has the potential to provide 1GW of Data Centre capacity with access to 3.4GW of Green Power, creating £14.3bn of GVA, 14,000 jobs and reducing fuel poverty. This initiative will therefore drive economic growth, attract global investment, and create high-value tech jobs, reinforcing Lancashire’s position at the forefront of the UK’s green and digital economy.