‘Coleraine is perfectfor new data centre’

Nigel Macauley said there is a growing anticipation that a centre could be established in the borough.

In a statement he said: “With around 460 students gaining STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) qualifications in the Coleraine area and 1700 graduates from the University of Ulster; (Coleraine Campus) prospective employers can rest assure that local Coleraine people have the skills and expertise to successfully operate an important data centre serving the whole of Northern Ireland.

“A data centre in the Coleraine locale could certainly become a hub of innovation in the North West of Northern Ireland. With the steady growth of the IT/Computing sector in the United Kingdom this data centre has the potential to establish itself as a centre of excellence for cloud computing, operations, data management and IT services. Let’s hope Coleraine Borough Council act to secure this for local people.”

Mr Macauley said a strong case could be made as there is currently only one small British Telecom data centre in Northern Ireland compared with te in the Republic: “This would be an excellent opportunity for the private sector.’