Public Site Works Open Chapelcross to a BVI-Owned Campus

1,000 MW of data halls are planned on land the UK nuclear landlord had already opened to a private partner, now controlled through the British Virgin Islands. CX Tech Limited wants permission in principle for a Chapelcross data centre next to Creca in Dumfriesshire, and it puts the private ticket at £16.5bn ($21.8bn).

The political row is about who owns the applicant. The quieter fact is that public site works were already being lined up as a generic unlock, so the company does not need a cheque made out in its name to sit on the value of that land.

Heads of Terms Came Before the Company Existed

On 19 November 2025 the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said it had entered Heads of Terms with CX Power as strategic developer for a green energy hub on the Chapelcross estate. The NDA described CX Power as an entity made up of GA Consultants and Global Mutual Properties Limited. The focus was 135 acres of unlicensed land beside the old nuclear licensed area, with hydrogen, advanced manufacturing and AI data centres on the masterplan.

NDA group chief executive David Peattie tied the deal to public land being freed for reuse.

CX Power coming on board is a significant step forwards, unlocking the combined potential of the public and private sector to accelerate the programme at Chapelcross.

David Peattie, NDA group chief executive, GOV.UK

Energy minister Michael Shanks called it a clean-energy hub that would create jobs. Dumfries and Galloway Council, Nuclear Restoration Services, South of Scotland Enterprise and the Borderlands Inclusive Growth Deal were named as partners. CX Power chief executive Graeme Anderson said the pitch was to use local wind and solar to support the grid rather than burden it.

Nine days later a limited company with that name appeared on the UK register, at a London address already used by Graham Edwards’s holding group.

FROM HEADS OF TERMS TO THE PLANNING FILE

1. 19 November 2025: The NDA announces Heads of Terms with CX Power for the Chapelcross hub.
2. 28 November 2025: CX Power Limited is incorporated in London, company 16880627, with Wpgss Limited as controlling shareholder.
3. 8 September 2026: The company is renamed CX Tech Limited.
4. 16 September 2026: Holyrood agrees that hyperscale decisions should wait for national guidance.
5. 21 September 2026: Dumfries and Galloway Council receives application 26/1649/PIP; it is validated on 28 September.
6. 29 October 2026: The published comments deadline on the live file.

Chapelcross was Scotland’s first commercial nuclear station, generating from 1959 to 2004 at 240 MW. The data halls would stand on fields north of that pad, on NDA land that is outside the nuclear licence. Action to Protect Rural Scotland says most of the scheme is greenfield, not the old plant itself.

Public Cash Is Parked Against the Site

Up to £22.8m in public money has been described as sitting against Chapelcross. Minutes from a 2024 Dumfries and Galloway Council meeting say the authority had committed £5.5m “to unlock the site for development.” A Borderlands Inclusive Growth Deal spokesperson said up to £17.3m had been allocated “for site preparation and access” to bring the former station back into economic use.

THE MONEY PARKED AGAINST CHAPELCROSS

Both the council and Borderlands say no funding has been awarded. They say the cash is not tied to a specific project or use of the site, and would be released only against a successful business case, planning approvals, value for money, and the statutory consents and licences. That wording is the mechanism. Site works can be justified as regeneration even while the occupant is still a planning applicant.

The wider Borderlands deal was signed in March 2021. GOV.UK notes a £350m government pot, including £150m for Scotland, £85m from the Scottish Government and £65m from the UK government, supporting more than £450m of projects across the border authorities. Chapelcross is one slice of that map, not a one-off gift to CX Tech. It still raises the land and the access that a 1,000 MW campus needs.

Filings Put Edwards Behind CX Tech

Companies House shows CX Tech Limited was incorporated on 28 November 2025 as CX Power Limited, then renamed on 8 September 2026. The registered office is Ort House, 147 Arlington Road, London. The stated business is letting and operating real estate. Wpgss Limited, company 11366634, is listed as holding 75% or more of the shares and voting rights from the day of incorporation.

Wpgss accounts say it is “part of a group the ultimate parent company of which is WPGSS Holdings Ltd registered in the British Virgin Islands.” They add: “Graham Edwards is the ultimate controlling party by virtue of his shareholdings.” Companies House records that Edwards, the UK Conservative Party treasurer, holds 75% or more of Wpgss as a member of a firm. He has given more than £6m to the Conservatives since 2018 and was named treasurer in 2022. He is a former chief executive of property firm Telereal Trillium.

THE FILING CHAIN

• CX Tech Limited: UK applicant for the Chapelcross campus, company 16880627, London-registered.
• Wpgss Limited: UK holding company, 75% or more of CX Tech, same Camden address.
• WPGSS Holdings Ltd: Ultimate parent named in Wpgss accounts, registered in the British Virgin Islands.
• Graham Edwards: Named as the ultimate controlling party of that group.

A spokesperson for Edwards said his “political activities are entirely separate” from CX Tech and had played “no part whatsoever” in the planning application. CX Tech said it was a private UK company with no connection to any political party, would be subject to UK tax on its profits, and had “neither sought nor received preferential political treatment.” Ownership, it said, is disclosed through statutory filings.

In 2007 Edwards was found to have wrongly tried to reduce tax on £5m of bonuses through an avoidance scheme. A trust in that scheme was used to buy a £1.5m mansion. His spokesperson said the “historic tax matter” related to a bonus received in 2002, that full tax and national insurance were paid when it was received, that a later KPMG reclaim was disallowed by HMRC, and that he received no penalty.

Eight Halls on 55 Hectares North of the Plant

Application 26/1649/PIP seeks planning permission in principle for a data centre, training centre, industrial buildings, a substation and associated works. CX Tech describes a 55-hectare campus with buildings up to 40 metres high. The headline power figure is about 1,000 MW. The finer grain is eight buildings at about 120 MW each, which is 960 MW, a rounded campus claim rather than a proved grid contract.

WHAT THE PIP ASKS FOR

The project site lists about 750 construction jobs and 540 permanent roles, plus 40 apprenticeships in each year of the eight-year build. CX Tech says it is targeting a permission-in-principle decision in December 2026, with phased construction from 2027 to 2035 if consent and money follow. Anderson has called it a once-in-a-generation chance to join renewable power, digital kit and jobs on a site that already has a 132 kV grid supply point.

The firm says it has found about 1 GW of consented or planned renewable generation within 5 km and about 2 GW within 20 km, and that it is looking at private-wire links to wind, solar and biomass. It also says closed-loop, non-evaporative cooling would cut water use to the equivalent of 32 households a year across the whole campus, and that backup plant would run on green fuel rather than diesel. Scottish Greens MSP Laura Moodie says a campus of this size would use 7 million MWh a year, equal to more than two million homes, and has called it one of the most concerning hyperscale bids to date.

The local fight in Annan was already about that load, the height of the halls, and whether a rural grid should take a national AI plant, before anyone had read a BVI parent line in a holding-company account. CX Tech says a 500-plus page environmental assessment sits with the plans and that claims it would threaten water and electricity supplies are untrue. The council has said the volume of comments means it will not publish them online until the notification period ends. More than 5,000 objections were lodged through a Scottish Greens portal in under a week.

Holyrood Has Already Frozen Hyperscale Decisions

On 16 September 2026 MSPs voted on Green MSP Patrick Harvie’s motion for a moratorium on new hyperscale data centres. The original text did not pass. An amended motion did, by 80 votes to 26, with 15 abstentions and 8 not voting. It welcomes national planning guidance by the end of the year, asks for a full publication within 12 months, and says there should be no decisions on planning or consenting until that work is complete.

Nine Conservative MSPs voted against the final motion. Three did not vote. Public finance minister Hannah Mary Goodlad told the chamber she did not agree there should be a moratorium, calling it the wrong message for investment, and pledged guidance by Christmas. The party’s Holyrood deputy leader, Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, had tabled an amendment that rejected a blanket freeze and stressed economic benefits while accepting environmental and community effects.

There is no evidence that those votes were shaped by party donors. Conservative politicians have also opposed data centre bids in their own patches. Transparency campaigners still asked what large donors expect. Kamila Kingstone, senior campaign lead at Spotlight on Corruption, said the no vote on a pause, set beside donations from Edwards and from Borders donor Dermot Jenkinson, “raises serious questions around conflicts of interest.”

The public rightly question what donors to political parties expect in return for their cash.

Juliet Swann, Transparency International UK

CX Tech’s December target now sits against that pause. Ministers have said they do not expect planning authorities to determine hyperscale cases before the guidance lands.

A Second Donor Sits Behind a Borders Scheme

Chapelcross is not the only live Scottish bid with a Conservative donor in the company papers. Dermot Jenkinson is a director and controller of Sunlaws Development Company, which is behind the 225 MW Southside data centre near Duns, on land owned by the Roxburghe Estate. Electoral Commission records show he has given the Scottish Borders Conservative branch £10,000 since 2015, including £3,000 on 20 April 2026, weeks before the Holyrood election.

Sunlaws said those were “personal donations” with “no connection whatsoever” to the company, and that Jenkinson was not in line to benefit financially from his post. A Southside spokesperson put the scheme at £1.6bn to £2.4bn, with about 1,000 construction jobs and well over 100 permanent skilled roles, subject to an environmental impact assessment, more consultation, and independent planning scrutiny.

Scottish Greens MSP Laura Moodie called the Edwards filings “absolutely damning evidence” of Tory links to hyperscale development. Liberal Democrat MSP Duncan Dunlop said it was “disrespectful” if money earned from a centre powered by local resources “might be offshored to a tax haven and used to line the pockets of the Tory party treasurer.” Labour MSP Carol Mochan said it was “no surprise” the party was “so closely linked to the companies building these data centres.” The Scottish and UK Conservatives did not respond to a request for comment on the ownership trail.

Who Would Pay Tax on Chapelcross Gains?

Mike Lewis, director of TaxWatch, said offshore ownership “doesn’t necessarily mean that income and gains aren’t taxed here,” but that “we just don’t know.” He called on the people who ultimately own CX Tech to say how and where they would pay tax on income and gains from Chapelcross. CX Tech repeats that it is UK-registered and taxed here. The BVI parent still sits above Wpgss, which is why the answer is not on the face of the planning form.

The ultimate beneficial owners of CX Tech Ltd should clarify how and where they plan to pay tax on income and gains from their Chapelcross proposal.

Mike Lewis, director, TaxWatch

The Say No to Chapelcross AI Data Centre group said the filings showed the “only goal of the development” was to “generate money for wealthy people at the expense of communities,” and called the offered community benefits “highly uncertain.” It also said it feared Conservative MSPs could put developers ahead of the public interest.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The applicant: CX Tech Limited is the planning applicant and, after a rename, the NDA’s named development partner vehicle.
• The controller: Wpgss accounts name Graham Edwards as ultimate controlling party, via a BVI parent.
• The cash: £5.5m plus up to £17.3m is described for unlocking and access, and none of it has been paid out.
• The freeze: Holyrood’s amended motion says hyperscale decisions should wait for national guidance.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Tax path: Where profits and gains would be taxed beyond CX Tech’s UK-company statement.
• Grid contract: Whether about 1,000 MW is a rounded design figure or a secured connection.
• Awards: Whether Borderlands or council money will ever be drawn down against this scheme.
• Timing: Whether a December 2026 PIP decision can be issued before the guidance exists.

Comments on 26/1649/PIP remain open until 29 October 2026. The NDA still holds the land. The £22.8m still sits as site preparation, not as a grant to a named data-centre firm. That is the arrangement the BVI filing now sits on top of.