At a glance
Goodman confirmed on 28 September 2026 that it had told the NSW planning department it will not proceed with Project Mars, a A$1.2 billion data centre at Lane Cove West.
The 90MW building would have stood about 20 metres from the nearest house and 160 metres from Lane Cove West Public School.
The application drew 374 submissions, 358 of them objections, against none from the public at Goodman's approved Macquarie Park site five kilometres away.
At a Senate hearing in Lane Cove on 22 September, Goodman's general manager of development said the company had not reached social licence for the project.
Victoria announced a 150-metre buffer between new data centres and homes on 22 September, and whether New South Wales or Canberra follows is the open question.
Goodman Group has withdrawn Project Mars, its proposed A$1.2 billion data centre at 12 Mars Road, Lane Cove West, the ABC reported on 28 September 2026. The NSW Planning Portal now lists application SSD-82052708 as withdrawn. Goodman said the "policy and regulatory environment for large-scale data centre development has evolved significantly" and that it had weighed those changes with "the views of the local community".
Residents and Lane Cove Council opposed the project, and a Senate committee heard the objections in Lane Cove on 22 September. Goodman backed down only after the project was put on the record before the Senate: six days after its general manager conceded the company lacked social licence, it pulled a data centre sited about 20 metres from homes.
Project Mars sat about 20 metres from homes
The application sought consent to build and run a 24-hour data centre with an overall power consumption of about 90MW, according to the planning portal. The three-storey building would have stood about 20 metres from the nearest house and 160 metres from Lane Cove West Public School, the ABC reported.
The application drew 374 submissions, 358 of them objections. While it was under assessment, Goodman offered A$1.1 million to the council plant nursery next door, and Lane Cove Council used its submission to the Senate inquiry to ask for a pause on new data centres.
Goodman told the Senate it was short of social licence
The Senate inquiry into artificial intelligence and data centres held its first public hearing in Lane Cove on 22 September 2026. Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson pressed Goodman's general manager of development, Ben McGilp, to withdraw the proposal, calling it "a wholly unreasonable proposal" that "shows contempt for local residents".
McGilp said Goodman expected to decide the project's future by the end of the year. Asked about community support, he told the committee, as Reuters reported: "I'm not suggesting we've reached ... social licence in that particular example." Six days later, on 28 September, Goodman confirmed the withdrawal, three months ahead of the timetable McGilp had given the committee.
AirTrunk appeared at the same hearing. Its own Lane Cove campus sits 600 metres from the nearest residential boundary, vice president Tom McKellar told the committee.
The rules changed while Mars sat in assessment
Goodman's environmental impact statement for Project Mars went onto the planning portal in February 2026, before New South Wales or Victoria had published data centre guidelines. New South Wales released its data centre guidelines on 17 August, offering a 75-day assessment to projects that meet their energy and water measures. Victoria followed on 22 September, the day of the Lane Cove hearing, with a 150-metre buffer between new data centres and homes and a ban on new data centres in residential zones.
The federal government has said it will introduce rules on where data centres are built, and Reuters reported they are due by early 2027. Goodman cited the changed policy and regulatory environment, together with the community's views, as the reason it stopped.
Goodman won three Sydney consents in nine months
Goodman won three Sydney data centre consents in the nine months to September 2026. At Macquarie Park, Project Apollo received no submissions from the public, and Goodman named separation from homes as its reason for choosing the precinct.
Project and site | Scale | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
Project Duke, Mascot | 90MVA, nine halls | Approved 22 December 2025 |
Project Pluto, Guildford West | A$1.11 billion, 68MW IT load | Approved 23 July 2026 |
Project Apollo, Macquarie Park | A$1.365 billion, 135MW | Approved 2 September 2026 |
Project Mars, Lane Cove West | A$1.2 billion, about 90MW | Withdrawal confirmed 28 September 2026 |
Source: NSW Planning Portal major projects register and determination documents; ABC, 28 September 2026. MVA is a measure of electrical supply capacity; the other figures are an IT load and total power consumption.
Project Pluto is on the site of Castrol's former lubricants plant at Guildford West. The three consents total A$3.65 billion, and the wider Sydney build is tracked on the Sydney data centre map.
Should Lane Cove West ever have been lodged?
Project Mars should not have reached the planning system. It was an opportunistic application, lodged before New South Wales published its data centre guidelines or Victoria set its 150-metre buffer, on a site about 20 metres from homes and 160 metres from a primary school. Goodman's own Macquarie Park project, five kilometres away in a business precinct, won consent with no public submissions.
Goodman withdrew the application within a week of the Senate hearing, and the outcome is the right one for Lane Cove and for an industry that relies on community support to build. We expect new Sydney applications to favour business and industrial precincts set back from housing, as Goodman's Macquarie Park consent and AirTrunk's Lane Cove campus, 600 metres from the nearest residential boundary, already are.
What to watch
The federal location rules. Reuters reported the government's rules on where data centres are built are due by early 2027. A minimum distance from housing would set nationally what Victoria has set at 150 metres.
The Senate inquiry's next hearing. The committee sits in Canberra on 1 October 2026, its first hearing since Lane Cove and Yarraville.
What happens at 12 Mars Road. Goodman has not said what it will do with the Lane Cove West site after the withdrawal.