Plans to replace a free hospital park and ride with an AI data centre will face more hurdles after an intervention by Welsh ministers which could give them power to make the final call on the proposals.

Founded by the local health board, the 900 space park and ride facility is served by the free H59 shuttle bus to the nearby University Hospital of Wales.

A holding directive, which is a temporary order that prevents a council from approving a planning application, was issued by the Welsh Government in August to give time for considerations over whether Welsh ministers ‘call in’ the data centre plans for the area of Llanrumney in East Cardiff. Should the plans be successfully ‘called in’, Senedd politicians would have control over whether the proposals are given the go-ahead, instead of Cardiff Council.

Until a decision is made, the future for the hospital park and ride site, located just off the A48, remain uncertain. In a letter to local councillors, Cardiff Council confirmed that the planning application would not be covered during the Planning Committee meeting on the 8th October. It will instead be provisionally pushed back to the next meeting on the 5th November, but the council added that consideration of the plans could still face extra delays.

A considerable community response has given heavy pushback on the proposals, with nearly 1,300 formal objections, criticisms by local Senedd members, and councillors across the political spectrum, as well as a campaign led by community union ACORN.

Local campaigners believe that losing the park and ride would be detrimental to the patients, workers, and visitors who rely on the service. While the council and local health board say they will seek an alternative site for the facility, objectors want to see a replacement fully operational before any spades go into the ground for the potential data centre works.

The proposals have also drawn criticism over the environmental impacts of data centres. It is proposed that the centre is powered for five years by a ‘temporary energy centre’ which generates up to 49 megawatts of electricity by burning gas.

Afterwards, it would be connected to the grid, at which point the data centre would need to draw up to 150 megawatts of electricity continuously. That would be equivalent to the consumption of around 536,000 separate households.

Local MSs' for Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf, Nick Carter and Zaynub Akbar, echoed these concerns, while also raising criticisms of the air quality assessments completed by the developer. In a joint statement, they said they “did not agree” with the developer’s conclusions in the air quality assessment.

The initial January 2026 assessment says that the backup generators would breach safe limits if used for over 30 minutes and that guidance would have to be issued for residents to stay inside and close all windows.

A later assessment, dated April 2026, added guidance that each individual backup generator is tested weekly and that nitrogen dioxide emissions were considered “acceptable”.

The developer, Curtis Hall Limited, responded that the addition of low emission generators as part of the later assessment meant that the plans met national air quality standards, and the risk to the public would be regarded by regulators as “not significant”.