The UK government’s decision to designate datacenters as critical national infrastructure (CNI) may do more than just offer protection against critical incidents; it may also allow developers to override any local objections to such facilities being built.
Last week, the country’s Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle, announced that datacenters in Britain are now classed as CNI, putting them on the same footing as water, power grid and emergency services systems. This means they can expect greater government support in preparing for and recovering from critical incidents.
But The Register understands that there may be a side effect to this policy move, which is that classing these facilities as CNI means they are no longer subject to the same planning restrictions as before, and so more of them are likely to get approval.
This may not go down well in some parts of the country, especially areas close to London where much of the UK’s datacenter infrastructure tends to cluster and which are likely targets for future development.
The issue was highlighted by a civil servant speaking at the recent Think Data for Government conference held in London for public sector organizations.
“Today on the BBC there’s a news story out about datacenters being classified as critical national infrastructure in this country,” said Ishmael Burdeau, Lead Business Sustainability Architect for DWP Digital and responsible for its Net Zero strategy.
“I live in Derbyshire, but if you live in Hampshire, Buckinghamshire, you may be aware there’s plans to build datacenters on the green belt, and that’s coming up against local opposition, because datacenters to local communities bring no value. There’s a security guard, couple of DevOps engineers. That’s about it. It’s very low employment,” Burdeau continued.
“So that’s why they’ve been classified, so that they can override local opposition to datacenters. And I think that’s a critical thing, that we think about how we make better use of what we have and just use less, essentially,” he added.
Whether making it easier to get planning permission for bit barns is a side effect of designating them as critical infrastructure or one of the reasons for doing so isn’t clear. We asked the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) if it could clarify the matter, but did not receive a response.
However, when announcing the move last week, DSIT stated that it will “provide greater reassurance the UK is a safe place to invest in datacenters to businesses such as DC01UK, the company behind today’s planning application for an investment of nearly £4 billion in Europe’s largest datacenter in Hertfordshire.”
That facility is being developed on what is presumably green belt land alongside the M25 motorway and has backing from local officials, though residents of the area may feel differently about “Europe’s largest datacenter” appearing in their backyard.
The Labour party also made clear that it intended to ease planning restrictions holding back investment in bit barns if it secured a victory in the general election held in July, which it duly did.
However, this policy may cause unrest in some parts of the country, especially those where datacenter developments have already been rejected by the local planning authorities and there is a danger that their applications may be revived.
Two recent examples are the West London Technology Park, which was planned for the Woodlands Park Landfill Site close to Iver in Buckinghamshire, but was rejected last year, and another at a site near Abbots Langley in Hertfordshire.
Bruce Owen, managing director at Equinix UK, commented: “The internet and the digital infrastructure that underpins it have become essential components of our daily lives, comparable to water, gas, and electricity.
“They have become indispensable services for both individuals and the UK economy. We are hopeful that UK government recognising datacenters as ‘Critical National Infrastructure’ will mean that access to grid power and the planning process will become easier.”
We asked the MPs representing the constituencies where these sites are located – Beaconsfield and South West Hertfordshire – how they felt about planning restrictions being relaxed for datacenters. The office of the MP for Beaconsfield told us they “will be in touch should she wish to comment,” and the office for the other MP had not responded at the time of publication.
It isn’t just a problem in the UK, of course, and planners here might be well advised to learn lessons from the US state of Virginia, where there were few restrictions on datacenter building and it now has at least double the datacenter capacity of any other region in the world.
As The Register covered at the time, residents in one county of the state were poised to fight a new Amazon facility being built on farm land. They lost that fight, but when our reporter checked back this year, the local authorities said they had learned lessons and scaled back their ambitions for the area. ®