{"id":70740,"date":"2026-08-13T01:47:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T01:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/70740\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T01:47:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T01:47:20","slug":"city-of-stirling-rejects-push-to-implement-city-wide-data-centre-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/70740\/","title":{"rendered":"City of Stirling rejects push to implement city-wide data centre ban"},"content":{"rendered":"

A push to investigate banning data centres across the City of Stirling has been rejected.<\/p>\n

Cr Suzanne Migdale wanted the city to look into amending its local planning scheme to classify the facilities as a prohibited use.<\/p>\n

Her proposal sparked almost an hour of debate at Tuesday night\u2019s council meeting, with almost every council member weighing in on the potential risks and benefits of the facilities.<\/p>\n

It was ultimately defeated in an 8\u20134 vote, with mayor Mark Irwin among those voting against it.<\/p>\n

Cr Migdale said she was not opposed to technology or artificial intelligence, but believed data centres needed to be in areas equipped to handle their significant demands.<\/p>\n

\u201cI recognise that as our population grows and as more people and businesses use digital services, the demand for data storage and processing will also grow,\u201d Cr Migdale said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the question before us is not where the data centres are needed. We know they\u2019re needed. The question is where they should be located.<\/p>\n

\"CouncillorCamera IconCouncillor Suzanne Migdale. Credit: Supplied<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe they should be located in places that are properly planned and equipped to manage their significant demands, ideally in suitable regional or industrial areas, rather than within established metropolitan communities such as Stirling.\u201d<\/p>\n

She raised concerns about the amount of electricity and water used by large data centres, as well as potential noise, emissions and other impacts on surrounding communities.<\/p>\n

Data centres are facilities that store digital information on large numbers of computer servers, supporting everything from websites and social media to cloud services and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

As the uptake of AI systems grows around the world, so too has demand for the centres needed to support the technology.<\/p>\n

However, their rapid expansion has also attracted growing scrutiny over the huge amounts of electricity and water some facilities require to operate, as well as amenity impacts.<\/p>\n

According to the Australian Energy Market Operator, there are currently 162 large data centres across Australia, including 15 connected to WA\u2019s main electricity grid.<\/p>\n

Collectively, the facilities account for about 2 per cent of the nation\u2019s grid-supplied electricity use, with demand forecast to roughly triple by 2030.<\/p>\n

While recognising the concerns raised by Cr Migdale, several councillors argued a potential city-wide ban was unnecessary, pointing to smaller data centres already operating in the city.<\/p>\n

Cr Tony Krsticevic said he believed concerns about large-scale data centres being built in the city were unrealistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ones people are scared of, to build that in the City of Stirling, you\u2019d have to demolish half of Osborne Park to build one of these AI data centres,\u201d Cr Krsticevic said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we\u2019re not going to demolish half of Osborne Park to build a data AI centre. So it\u2019s an unrealistic expectation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Data centres are not currently defined as a specific land use under local or State planning legislation and are generally classified as warehouses or storage facilities.<\/p>\n

\"StirlingCamera IconStirling councillor Tony Krsticevic. Credit: City of Stirling<\/p>\n

Cr Krsticevic believed the city\u2019s existing planning controls were enough to determine where data centres could operate.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the checks and balances are there. You know the planning team\u2019s all over it. I don\u2019t see the point in trying to amend (a local planning scheme) or go through some complicated process when it\u2019s all covered,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Federal Government is currently developing national standards for AI-related infrastructure, which Cr Migdale had hoped would have been considered as part of the city\u2019s review.<\/p>\n

Under the proposed framework, large data centres are set to be legally required to underwrite their own new power supply, pay their full share of connection costs, reduce their electricity use when needed to support the grid and operate as water-efficient as possible.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s director of planning and development, Amanda Sheers, said officers would not be in a position to provide further guidance to the council until the Federal Government announced its framework. She was also wary of blanket prohibitions on land uses.<\/p>\n

\u201cOfficers do have concerns about X-using (prohibitions) across the city-wide,\u201d Ms Sheers said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would only do that for really incompatible land uses. So I think our current scheme might have something like mining operations and corrective centres.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe warehouse land use, we\u2019ve already listed it as an X use in some of those sensitive zones, so residential, mixed use centres, the areas where we see residential … we\u2019re already prohibiting warehouses from locating in those zones.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Federal Government\u2019s proposed artificial intelligence regulations are expected to be considered by Parliament in early 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A push to investigate banning data centres across the City of Stirling has been rejected. Cr Suzanne Migdale…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,152,2673,335,2682,1134,464],"class_list":["post-70740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-news","tag-north","tag-perth","tag-stirling","tag-technology","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}