Housing and Planning Minister (): The government is
committed to ensuring that the planning system effectively
facilitates development to meet the needs of a modern economy,
including supporting essential digital infrastructure such as
data centres.
In December last year, following consultation on how the National
Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) could better support economic
growth in key sectors, we announced plans to enable certain
large-scale projects within knowledge, creative, high technology
and data-driven industries to be directed into the Nationally
Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) consenting regime
process.
The government is now taking an important step towards ensuring
they can do so. I can confirm that applicants wishing to request
that projects to develop large laboratories or gigafactories be
directed into the NSIP consenting regime process, may make a
request to the Secretary of State under section 35 of the
Planning Act 2008 under the existing ‘industrial process or
processes' and ‘research and development of products or
processes' descriptors prescribed in the Infrastructure Planning
(Business or Commercial Projects) Regulations 2013.
Furthermore, I have today laid the draft Infrastructure Planning
(Business or Commercial Projects) (Amendment) Regulations in
Parliament. This draft statutory instrument amends the 2013
Regulations to provide that data centres are prescribed projects
capable of being directed into the NSIP consenting regime under
section 35 of the 2008 Act.
The draft Regulations are subject to the affirmative
Parliamentary procedure. Subject to parliamentary time and
approval, we hope to make these Regulations and for them to come
into force later this year or early next. This will then enable
developers of certain proposed data centres on request to ‘opt
in' to the NSIP consenting process, provided the Secretary of
State thinks that the project or proposed project is one of
national significance and the development meets the other
requirements set out in section 35 of the Act.
To support this change, the Department for Science, Innovation
and Technology will prepare a new National Policy Statement for
data centres. This will set out the national policy for this
sector and the policy framework for decision-making for data
centres. It will also include the parameters, thresholds and
other relevant factors which may indicate whether such a
development is of national significance and capable of meeting
the requirements of section 35 of the 2008 Act in order to be
directed to proceed through the NSIP consenting regime.
