Italy's Lombardy to revise data centre law next week after application surge

By Giancarlo Navach MILAN, Oct 15 (Reuters) — Just four months after approving legislation to regulate a surge in demand for data centres, Lombardy, Italy's most populous region and home to Milan, is preparing to tighten the rules in response to growing public concern over the pace and scale of new developments. • Amendments to the law, approved in June, are due to be presented to the regional government on October 19 and could be approved by the regional council within about a month, regional councillor Massimo Sertori told Reuters. • "We will push to use as little agricultural land as possible and will seek to further discourage the use of farmland. Instead, projects should be developed on disused industrial sites, using innovative water-management systems to reduce water consumption," Sertori said. • The current legislation already gives priority to brownfield sites, including abandoned industrial areas, and strongly discourages projects on agricultural land or undeveloped greenfield sites. • Under the existing rules, developments on agricultural land face construction charges that are 100% higher, while projects in parks or environmentally sensitive areas are subject to fees th