Planning for the Future: Navigating the UK’s Data Center Development MazePlanning for the Future: Navigating the UK’s Data Center Development Maze

The UK’s construction planning system is notoriously bureaucratic, but does it really hinder data center development? According to some of the country’s leading data center operators, the answer depends on how much time – and money – you have.

The country’s planning regime is one of the most restrictive in the world – arguably rivaled only by California, where even installing a kitchen or bathroom may require a permit. However, when it comes to data centers, California is unlikely to reject applications over concerns like obstructed freeway views or development on a former landfill designated as green belt land. Yet these are precisely the kinds of refusals seen in the UK in recent years.

Still, planning consultancy Onnec notes that despite such high-profile cases, most applications are ultimately approved. Its research indicates that local authorities in the UK’s 10 biggest cities overwhelmingly support new data center applications, declining just three out of 88 applications. A further five, it admits, were withdrawn.

At the same time, a data center proposal in the north-east London borough of Havering – a 175-hectare, 600 MW campus that would be the largest in Europe – had yet to complete its arduous journey through the planning process at the time of writing.“Our data shows a willingness from local authorities to invest and support data centers, with many already aligned with the government’s strategy to ride the wave of AI to supercharge economic growth and productivity,” said Matt Salter, data center director at Onnec.

Related:Amazon Loses Fight to Exempt Data Center from Energy Regulation

But is it genuinely  easy to navigate a data center proposal through the UK’s notorious planning process?

According to Spencer Lamb, chief commercial officer at data center operator Kao Data, the answer is less straightforward. The outcomes brandished by Onnec, he told Data Center Knowledge, reflect the level of work that was put into the applications, both by the companies behind the proposals and the consultants with local knowledge who are inevitably called in to assist.

“Most applications are successful and do follow the statutory period of 13 weeks,” says Lamb. “But it’s not necessarily that period that’s the issue – it’s the work you have to do prior to that, which can take nine to 12 months of effort and energy.”

UK Data Center Planning: Operator Perspectives

Matthew Grant, development director at Colt Data Centre Services, is currently navigating the planning process for multiple data centers, including a major project on a nine-acre site on the outskirts of London.

Related:The UK’s AI Action Plan: A Promising Initiative Marred by Flaws

“We’ve got planning permission for two data centers and another three going in for planning in the next few weeks,” said Grant. “The main thing for us is trying to reduce the time it takes. If you look at our current planning submission… it will probably have been in process for about two  years already. That’s from our first pre-application, where we started talking to the local authority in earnest about a scheme to finally acquire permission.

Grant added: “Pre-application starts after we’ve developed the business case and it’s been signed off by the board. Then we start developing a sensible concept and talk to the local authority about it.”

Occasionally, it may even take as long as three years, but it typically takes two years of talking, meeting, and planning. 

“Under British law, there are a number of steps you must go through,” he explained. “At the pre-application stage, it’s more around the town planning side – what it will look like, what the ‘townscape views’ will be like.”

With a floor-to-floor height twice that of a typical building, a six-story data center will be around the same height as a 12-story office bloc and the ‘massing’ of the building will concern many planning officers.

“They don’t just want boxes,” says Grant. “They want something that’s got some visual interest.”

Related:Land Barriers: How Zoning Regulations Could Stall Data Center Industry Expansion

An obligatory environmental impact assessment must also be compiled with the planning application. If rare newts or bats are suspected of being present on the site, that could hinder the process.

Moreover, in the London metropolitan area, planning applications also need to go through both the local authority and the Greater London Authority.

Community Relations

In addition, despite the UK government’s rhetoric regarding the critical importance of AI and data centers, planning officials in many local authorities can have a hazy understanding of the industry.

“Often,” says Lamb, “you’ve got to engage the local authority that you’re working with as to what a data center actually is. When you’re talking to elected local councilors or the local planning officers, data centers may be a very foreign thing to them, and they might not fully understand them.”

However, Grant believes that the local authorities around London that Colt deals with have now acquired a high level of understanding, especially in the well-established digital infrastructure hotspots.

“In the past, local authorities didn’t necessarily understand what a data center is, what it does, and how it runs,” he said. “On our first application in the borough of Hillingdon [near London Heathrow Airport] there wasn’t much knowledge around it, but the officials are now very knowledgeable and fully understand how data centers work.”

Complaints from residents are now minimal too, Grant adds.

“We’ve got two data centers in Hayes [in West London]," the Colt executive said. “We ran a public consultation in October 2024… and the conversations we had weren’t really around objections, but more around understanding.”

In many cases, that lack of understanding among the public can easily be assuaged. For example, Kao Data’s Lamb said that when Google was looking to establish a hyperscale data center in East London, some of the residents’ objections included fears that the lights would go out on a regular basis and that the data center cooling systems would suck local ponds and rivers dry.

Data center operators like Colt and Kao Data still actively engage with local authorities and communities to improve understanding.

After all, communities are interested in approving such applications, not just for the secure jobs they bring, but because a data center is a fairly benign development compared to, say, a logistics fulfillment center with its round-the-clock comings and goings, suggests Lamb.

Tax Planning

Along with the complex planning process, UK data center operators must pay environmental taxes and other financial obligations. For a large scheme, these are not insignificant. One industry insider told Data Center Knowledge that one of their new developments had attracted a carbon tax of around £6 million ($7.4 million), on top of £1.6 million ($1.3 million) related to air quality improvements, the donation of a community building, and a contribution to the city’s bike rental scheme.

Then, there are S106 and S278 agreements, which seek to reduce the impact of construction projects on local communities and cover the cost of alterations to the public highway.

Barriers to Entry?

With all these extra costs and obligations, it is perhaps unsurprising that half the world’s investment in AI-capable data centers is expected to be in the US, where regulations are generally lighter, and power costs are now one-third of the UK’s.

For organizations looking toward pan-European operations, the Netherlands or Ireland have become the destinations of choice.

“For [companies like] AWS, Google, and Microsoft, Ireland is attractive because of the much lower corporation tax, so they headquarter their EMEA operations in Ireland,” says Lamb. 

“They have developed lots of data centers to support their businesses around Europe. In the same vein, to some extent, Amsterdam is the port of Northern Europe, and data centers have followed suit.”

Connectivity is a major issue because the data center sector grew out of the need for close proximity to communications hubs in the industry's early days for logistical reasons.

UK Planning Reforms: Enough to Drive AI Growth?

With data center demand soaring, the UK government’s drive to build growth on the back of AI and the data center sector will require more than just political rhetoric and a few tweaks to the country’s planning system.

In early February 2025, the government released the latest stage in its data center plans: its digital infrastructure capabilities.

The proposals promise to speed up the planning permission process for data centers. The government promises to work with network operators to speed up the installation of the energy connections they need, but only up to 500 MW for each zone.

While the UK government’s AI Growth Zones aim to streamline approvals and drive economic expansion, questions remain about whether these policies will truly ease the burdens of planning or simply shift them elsewhere.

As global competition for AI infrastructure intensifies, the UK must ensure that regulatory complexities do not deter investment in its digital future.