The enduring image of Rick Blaine and Captain Renault walking arm in arm into the twilight at the end of Casablanca sets a standard for unlikely partnerships. And today, back in the real world, is the sense of rapport between the new government and data centers equally fictional? The short answer is no, because data center development aligns perfectly with core policy priorities.

Delivering large-scale data infrastructure projects in the UK is fraught with difficulty for operators and developers: suitable sites within starship range of the UK’s London market are vanishingly rare and land prices are inflated by competition both from peers and speculators. On the policy front, well-intentioned legislation sometimes seems designed to make life difficult by imposing complexity, cost, and delay. Moreover, public understanding of data center functions is surprisingly low in the UK in view of our digital dependency and our success as innovators, providers, and exporters of digital services.

However, planning and power pose the biggest development bottlenecks here. Let’s focus on planning, where the likelihood of a data center project being determined within the typical 13-week statutory period is minuscule.

Local authority planning teams are chronically under-resourced and often further constrained by the reallocation of fee income to mop up other, even more desperate, budget shortfalls within councils. Decisions have also been inconsistent because, to date, there has been no central government guidance to help planners appraise data center developments correctly: the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) has been silent on data centers and there is no dedicated land use class for this activity. As a consequence, protracted timescales, inconsistency, spurious conditions, and unpredictable outcomes can undermine project financing and make the UK appear less investible than other markets despite the enormous pent-up demand for capacity that we are seeing here.

Despite this apparent dysfunction, our planning issues are, at least partially, redeemable with the right strategic direction and political will. And we suddenly seem to have a plentiful supply of both with the new government.

Labour’s 2024 manifesto was the first to mention data centers, explicitly recognizing the sector’s importance as digital infrastructure and driver of growth. Since the election, the new administration has moved at astonishing speed. Clear announcements of intent to remove barriers to data center development were followed by proposals for a revised NPPF less than a month after taking office.

This has not happened by magic.

Policy usually follows a “Think, Say, Do” process but the strategic thinking must have been done well in advance, which has enabled the government to make immediate announcements regarding the direction of travel and subsequently issue detailed policy proposals without delay.

We should not forget a really significant contributing factor: all the heavy lifting that has quietly been going on in the background within the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT) since a dedicated data center team was set up in March 2020.

Two workstreams have been underway: one reviewing the sector’s security and resilience and (perhaps belatedly) the need for critical designation and the other assessing the UK’s data infrastructure capacity, whether it is sufficient, how it can be expanded, and how barriers to growth can be addressed.

The research looks likely to conclude that the UK is currently underserved in terms of capacity and that data centers should be placed under some form of critical infrastructure designation in the very near future. This will reinforce the position that we need data centers – a case not always accepted by local authorities. For a government with a large majority impatient to deliver on commitments relating to inward investment, technology, and growth, the timing is perfect.

Now back to the NPPF which merits further scrutiny. While the envisaged changes are heavily focused on increasing housing stock, the draft mentions data centers for the first time and includes important new provisions relating to land classification. Most controversially, it outlines a more qualitative approach to development in areas of designated green belt that are performing poorly and their reclassification as “grey belt” for which existing restrictions may be relaxed. The draft also acknowledges the locational attributes of data centers and their infrastructural and economic importance.

So what does this mean for operators? Firstly the new NPPF still largely devolves interpretation of what constitutes grey belt to planning authorities, so this is by no means a free-for-all to erect large grey boxes indiscriminately across the Home Counties. Rather it is a case of a slight shifting of parameters in our favour.

But what about councils? Authorities located in availability zones and feeling besieged by multiple data center applications may be anxious about the potential impact of the proposals on land they have defended tooth and nail for nearly a century. However, rather than heralding a flood of unrestricted development, the new rules could enable authorities to assess applications more qualitatively. They can set the bar high in terms of environmental performance, landscape aesthetics, local amenity, and community dividend. They can be selective, whilst demonstrating that they are helping to meet our need for digital infrastructure capacity.

And for the UK more broadly? This more commonsense approach to planning has the potential to improve certainty, increase the likelihood of positive outcomes, and reduce project timelines. This in turn renders financing more feasible and helps reposition the UK as a destination of choice for inward investors. Given the very high value of data center developments and their infrastructural role, seemingly minor adjustments to planning policy can have a material impact on growth at a national level. It is therefore very encouraging that the new government has listened, joined the dots, and is already implementing the necessary changes. It really is looking like the start of a productive partnership.

But there is a broader consideration. In my view, the part we play in this relationship; the way the sector behaves, is material to the public acceptability of data centers in the long term. Government support has not changed the social contract: data center operators and developers must respect the needs of their host communities and in return, their economic and infrastructural importance should be acknowledged.

Operators must not be seen to interpret a more qualitative approach to green belt designation as a license to erode a hugely important protective barrier that has preserved landscape, amenity, and open space and successfully limited urban sprawl. There is huge local and national sensitivity about the loss of such land and the need to prevent the remaining green belt from being downgraded either accidentally or cynically. We mustn’t get this wrong by overreaching, or assuming a social right to operate that we have not earned.

This new planning landscape gives developers an opportunity to demonstrate how they can mitigate these sensitivities in terms of design, sustainability, and community engagement.

It is possible to develop data centers that complement the surrounding landscape, that do not look like inverted prisons, that improve biodiversity, and deliver tangible economic and amenity benefits to local communities. By so doing we justify the confidence that has been placed in us by the new political regime and can become trusted partners in this important new relationship.