UK prepared to throw planning rules out the window for massive datacenters
An industry survey of 3,000 "senior datacenter professionals" found that operators, developers, and consultants believe the current process needs further reform to make it easier for them to build bit barns.
The report, "Powering the Future," comes from consultancy Business Critical Solutions (BCS) and points to the UK government's review last summer to 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 substantial projects," the report trumpets.
"It is clear from the response to our survey that the planning process needs reform as the sector believes it has been hindered by an overly complex planning system that has lacked clarity," BCS chief James Hart says in the report.
The Labour government only recently made changes to classify datacenters as critical national infrastructure (CNI), meaning they are no longer subject to the same planning restrictions as before. This allows developers to more easily override local objections to proposed projects, as reported by The Register last year.
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