The UK’s development planning system is notoriously bureaucratic, however does it actually hinder information heart improvement? In keeping with a few of the nation’s main information heart operators, the reply depends upon how a lot time – and cash – you could have.
The nation’s planning regime is among the most restrictive on this planet – arguably rivaled solely by California, the place even putting in a kitchen or rest room might require a allow. Nevertheless, in relation to information facilities, California is unlikely to reject functions over considerations like obstructed freeway views or improvement on a former landfill designated as inexperienced belt land. But these are exactly the sorts of refusals seen within the UK lately.
Nonetheless, planning consultancy Onnec notes that regardless of such high-profile circumstances, most functions are in the end accredited. Its analysis signifies that native authorities within the UK’s 10 largest cities overwhelmingly help new information heart functions, declining simply three out of 88 functions. An additional 5, it admits, have been withdrawn.
On the identical time, a knowledge heart proposal within the north-east London borough of Havering – a 175-hectare, 600 MW campus that might be the biggest in Europe – had but to finish its arduous journey by the planning course of on the time of writing.
The UK’s planning laws are among the many most complicated on this planet, shaping the place and the way information facilities might be constructed. Picture: DCN.
The UK’s planning laws are among the many most complicated on this planet, shaping the place and the way information facilities might be constructed. Picture: DCN.
“Our information exhibits a willingness from native authorities to take a position and help information facilities, with many already aligned with the federal government’s technique to trip the wave of AI to supercharge financial development and productiveness,” mentioned Matt Salter, information heart director at Onnec.
However is it genuinely straightforward to navigate a knowledge heart proposal by the UK’s infamous planning course of?
In keeping with Spencer Lamb, chief business officer at information heart operator Kao Information, the reply is much less simple. The outcomes brandished by Onnec, he informed DCN, mirror the extent of labor that was put into the functions, each by the businesses behind the proposals and the consultants with native data who’re inevitably known as in to help.
“Most functions are profitable and do comply with the statutory period of 13 weeks,” says Lamb. “But it surely’s not essentially that interval that’s the problem – it’s the work it’s important to do previous to that, which might take 9 to 12 months of effort and vitality.”
UK Information Middle Planning: Operator Views
Matthew Grant, improvement director at Colt Information Centre Companies, is presently navigating the planning course of for a number of information facilities, together with a significant undertaking on a nine-acre website on the outskirts of London.
“We’ve acquired planning permission for 2 information facilities and one other three stepping into for planning within the subsequent few weeks,” mentioned Grant. “The principle factor for us is making an attempt to cut back the time it takes. When you have a look at our present planning submission… it should most likely have been in course of for about two years already. That’s from our first pre-application, the place we began speaking to the native authority in earnest a couple of scheme to lastly purchase permission.
Grant added: “Pre-application begins after we’ve developed the enterprise case and it’s been signed off by the board. Then we begin creating a wise idea and discuss to the native authority about it.”
Sometimes, it could even take so long as three years, but it surely sometimes takes two years of speaking, assembly, and planning.
“Below British legislation, there are a variety of steps you will need to undergo,” he defined. “On the pre-application stage, it’s extra across the city planning facet – what it should appear to be, what the ‘townscape views’ shall be like.”
With a floor-to-floor top twice that of a typical constructing, a six-story information heart shall be across the identical top as a 12-story workplace bloc and the ‘massing’ of the constructing will concern many planning officers.
“They don’t simply need bins,” says Grant. “They need one thing that’s acquired some visible curiosity.”
An compulsory environmental influence evaluation should even be compiled with the planning utility. If uncommon newts or bats are suspected of being current on the location, that would hinder the method.
Furthermore, within the London metropolitan space, planning functions additionally must undergo each the native authority and the Higher London Authority.
Can the UK’s information heart sector maintain tempo with hovering demand, or will planning and energy constraints maintain it again? Picture: Alamy.
Can the UK’s information heart sector maintain tempo with hovering demand, or will planning and energy constraints maintain it again? Picture: Alamy.
As well as, regardless of the UK authorities’s rhetoric relating to the essential significance of AI and information facilities, planning officers in lots of native authorities can have a hazy understanding of the business.
“Usually,” says Lamb, “you’ve acquired to interact the native authority that you simply’re working with as to what a knowledge heart really is. While you’re speaking to elected native councilors or the native planning officers, information facilities could also be a really overseas factor to them, and they won’t absolutely perceive them.”
Nevertheless, Grant believes that the native authorities round London that Colt offers with have now acquired a excessive degree of understanding, particularly within the well-established digital infrastructure hotspots.
“Previously, native authorities didn’t essentially perceive what a knowledge heart is, what it does, and the way it runs,” he mentioned. “On our first utility within the borough of Hillingdon [near London Heathrow Airport] there wasn’t a lot data round it, however the officers at the moment are very educated and absolutely perceive how information facilities work.”
Complaints from residents at the moment are minimal too, Grant provides.
“We’ve acquired two information facilities in Hayes [in West London],” the Colt govt mentioned. “We ran a public session in October 2024… and the conversations we had weren’t actually round objections, however extra round understanding.”
In lots of circumstances, that lack of information among the many public can simply be assuaged. For instance, Kao Information’s Lamb mentioned that when Google was trying to set up a hyperscale information heart in East London, a few of the residents’ objections included fears that the lights would exit regularly and that the info heart cooling programs would suck native ponds and rivers dry.
Information heart operators like Colt and Kao Information nonetheless actively have interaction with native authorities and communities to enhance understanding.
In any case, communities are eager about approving such functions, not only for the safe jobs they create, however as a result of a knowledge heart is a reasonably benign improvement in comparison with, say, a logistics success heart with its round the clock comings and goings, suggests Lamb.
Tax Planning
Together with the complicated planning course of, UK information heart operators should pay environmental taxes and different monetary obligations. For a big scheme, these usually are not insignificant. One business insider informed DCN that considered one of their new developments had attracted a carbon tax of round £6 million ($7.4 million), on high of £1.6 million ($1.3 million) associated to air high quality enhancements, the donation of a group constructing, and a contribution to town’s bike rental scheme.
Then, there are S106 and S278 agreements, which search to cut back the influence of development initiatives on native communities and canopy the price of alterations to the general public freeway.
Boundaries to Entry?
With all these additional prices and obligations, it’s maybe unsurprising that half the world’s funding in AI-capable information facilities is predicted to be within the US, the place laws are typically lighter, and energy prices at the moment are one-third of the UK’s.
For organizations wanting towards pan-European operations, the Netherlands or Eire have turn into the locations of selection.
“For [companies like] AWS, Google, and Microsoft, Eire is engaging due to the a lot decrease company tax, in order that they headquarter their EMEA operations in Eire,” says Lamb.
“They’ve developed a lot of information facilities to help their companies round Europe. In the identical vein, to some extent, Amsterdam is the port of Northern Europe, and information facilities have adopted swimsuit.”
Connectivity is a significant concern as a result of the info heart sector grew out of the necessity for shut proximity to communications hubs within the business’s early days for logistical causes.
UK Planning Reforms: Sufficient to Drive AI Development?
With information heart demand hovering, the UK authorities’s drive to construct development on the again of AI and the info heart sector would require extra than simply political rhetoric and some tweaks to the nation’s planning system.
In early February 2025, the federal government launched the newest stage in its information heart plans: its digital infrastructure capabilities.
The proposals promise to hurry up the planning permission course of for information facilities. The federal government guarantees to work with community operators to hurry up the set up of the vitality connections they want, however solely as much as 500 MW for every zone.
Whereas the UK authorities’s AI Development Zones goal to streamline approvals and drive financial growth, questions stay about whether or not these insurance policies will actually ease the burdens of planning or just shift them elsewhere.
As world competitors for AI infrastructure intensifies, the UK should be certain that regulatory complexities don’t deter funding in its digital future.
