In a sign of the UK Government’s continued focus on infrastructure development, two important policy consultations have been run in recent months. 

Prime Minister Starmer has made repeated public promises to “back the builders, not the blockers”: how might this stated intention translate into policy and which opportunities might such policy present for owners and developers of UK infrastructure assets?

Firstly, in December 2024, the revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was published. Among a range of announcements, players in digital infrastructure and data centre markets will have noticed an acknowledgement of the importance of planning policies which should: 

“pay particular regard to facilitating development to meet the needs of a modern economy, including by identifying suitable locations for uses such as … data centres [and] digital infrastructure”. 

Additionally, the revised NPFF includes a direction that planning policies and decisions should: 

“recognise and address the specific locational requirements of different sectors [including] … clusters or networks of knowledge and data-driven, creative or high technology industries; and for new, expanded or upgraded facilities and infrastructure that are needed to support the growth of these industries (including data centres …)”.

These provisions of the revised NPPF certainly underscore a renewed focus on data centre planning approvals, calling to mind the Labour party general election manifesto pledge to ensure that industrial strategy “removes planning barriers to new data centres”.

Secondly, Lord Banner KC was tasked with assessing how delays may be reduced in the delivery of major infrastructure designated as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs). The NSIP programme aims to streamline the approvals needed for complex mega-projects by allowing a project promoter to make a single umbrella consent application to the relevant Secretary of State (rather than local planning authorities). 

Despite benefitting from a bespoke planning process, such applications can be subject to judicial review in UK courts, a process which can incur significant delay and additional costs. 

The Banner Report has made a range of recommendations to address perceived deficiencies in the NSIP regime, including narrowing the availability of judicial review to challenge an NSIP process, streamlining such review and reducing the time which such reviews take to pass through the courts. The UK Government has now made a public call for evidence, following which it intends to publish a response to the Banner recommendations. 

The outputs from these two notable policy consultations will be reviewed with interest by investors, owners, operators and developers in the UK’s infrastructure economy.