Datacenter builds could be shielded from judicial review in UK planning reforms

Systems

British government wants to ensure no hold-ups for critical energy and infrastructure projects 

The UK government may move to forestall objections to
datacenter projects via an overhaul of planning regulations that would shield critical
energy and infrastructure buildouts from legal challenges.

Finance minister, Chancellor
of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, is preparing
to unveil reforms allowing Parliament to designate key projects as
having critical national importance to prevent them from being subject to judicial
review.

“For too
long, vital infrastructure delivery has been delayed by judicial reviews of projects,” a spokesperson for HM Treasury said
in a ⁠statement.

The Chancellor “is clear that Parliament must take back
control to get Britain
building the ⁠power
plants, wind farms and grid
connections that will bring
⁠bills down, strengthen our energy security, and ⁠deliver
growth in every part of our country.”

This does not explicitly mention datacenters, but as The
Register has reported previously, massive server farms have already been lumped
in with energy generation as projects to be urgently fast-tracked by government.

Back in 2024, server farms were given Critical
National Infrastructure (CNI) designation – a move that a
government a civil servant warned would allow the authorities to override
opposition to datacenter sites by local residents.

Last year, a datacenter project management
biz urged the government go a step further and categorize
large datacenter developments as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects
(NSIPs).

This would shift decision-making from local authorities to
the national level, potentially expediting approvals for large projects, while removing any say that local residents may have in developments that affect them.

Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee also published a report last year on Treasury plans to implement stronger governance to speed
large infrastructure schemes, criticizing it for not including “technically
complex” projects such as those involving “digital transformation and
artificial intelligence (AI),” despite the government’s focus on these to
deliver economic growth.

Some are already welcoming the planning reforms before they
have even been officially announced.

“Today’s announcement is the right thing to do if we are
serious about growth, energy security and getting Britain building again,” said
Ben Brittain, director of public affairs at the Association for Consultancy and
Engineering (ACE).

“For too long, critical infrastructure projects have been
delayed by blockers, layers of uncertainty and lengthy legal challenge, driving
up costs and holding back investment.”

But the government should be wary, as public sentiment is
turning against the growing number of datacenters being built and the AI technology
that is driving their construction. Putting them beyond the reach of any legal
challenge could easily exacerbate this.

In America, for example, a recent survey found that people
would sooner
see a nuclear power plant sited in their locality than a datacenter. Gunshots
were also fired
at the home of an Indianapolis councilor who backed plans for a server farm
in his area.

In the UK, there have been protests against various
datacenter building projects. Activist group Global
Action Plan organized several at the end of February at sites including Iver
in Buckinghamshire and Potters Bar in Hertfordshire where recently announced
campuses are being constructed.

HM Treasury had not responded to our requests for further
information at the time of publication.  ®