The Greater London Authority says it will focus on courting “clean, green and efficient” data centers whilst considering whether to allow developers to build on the city’s grey belt, according to the latest iteration of the city's draft development plan.
The London Plan, released every five years, sets out development plans and priorities for the city, and the current plan has been open for consultation from July to October 2026. It will be examined in public next year and adopted in early 2028, according to the Mayor of London’s website.
– Draft London Plan
Dubbed as an ‘industry of the future,’ the draft plan has a whole section on the data center industry and lists it as one of its key performance indicators.
The draft plan’s criteria for what constitutes a “suitable location” for a data center require consideration of a site’s electricity and water supply, whether it will be placed next to an existing cluster, its opportunities for heat recovery, whether the land could instead be used to meet housing, employment, and infrastructure requirements, and its air quality impacts.
