Angela Rayner has approved plans for a controversial new data centre to be built on the greenbelt despite the local council previously having blocked the move.
The deputy PM overturned the decision to stop the development of a £670million building, which would be used to hold information on the NHS and financial centre, in Buckinghamshire.
This comes as Labour vowed this week to ‘send a clear message to the Nimbys’ by unleashing planning processes in Starmer six new milestones.
Earlier this month the Government also designated data centres as Critical National Infrastructure (CNI), which means that previously rejected planning proposals such as this one are being revisited.
The project was originally blocked by the Conservative-run Buckinghamshire County Council in October 2023 because it found that it constituted ‘inappropriate development in the green belt’.
Adding that it would damage the ‘landscape character and appearance and visual effects’ of the area.
However, Affinius Capital who will be funding the project claim it will bring £670million for the local economy and create 290 jobs.
A public inquiry is currently underway over a £1 billion project set to be built next to the M25 in Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire
Locals in a picturesque green belt village have gone to war with Angela Rayner (pictured) over plans for a sprawling 84,000 sq metre data centre in a field
The data centre is proposed by investment company Greystoke Land, and would sprawl over 84,000 sq metres across two buildings 65ft tall
The actual site in surrounded by other industrial buildings, such as a scrap metal recycling plant and a heavy goods vehicle storage.
Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook agreed with Ms Rayner’s decision claiming that it was an ‘optimal site and location for data centre use and there is a clear lack of alternative sites available at present to meet the demand for such data centres’.
Adding a warning that to block such a development would have ‘significant negative consequences for the UK digital economy’.
This comes after Ms Rayner also pushed through plans for a ‘super-prison’ on greenbelt land on Thursday, more than three years after the scheme was rejected by locals.
The Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary has approved the building of a jail holding 1,700 lags near Chorley in Lancashire, despite fears inmates would outnumber the population of local villages.
Chorley Council dismissed the plan for a site in Ulnes Walton, which is close to two existing prisons, in 2021.
Residents are against the proposed data centre in Abbot’s Langley, Herts
Local councils have blocked the application but an appeal was lodged with the government planning inspectorate in June, after Labour came into power
Noise, pollution, loss of green-belt land and traffic, along with loss of character, are major concerns of local residents
But Ms Rayner overruled objections saying harms including the loss of green belt would ‘clearly be outweighed by the benefits’ and that ‘very special circumstances exist which justify approval’, the BBC reported.
It comes as the Ministry of Justice struggles with a shortage of prison places that led ministers to free thousands of prisoners early in the summer.
Whitehall’s spending watchdog warned earlier this week that Government plans to boost prison capacity could fall short by thousands of cell spaces within two years and cost the taxpayer billions of pounds more than anticipated.
The National Audit Office (NAO) said current expansion plans introduced by the Tory government are ‘insufficient to meet future demand’ amid a projected shortage of 12,400 prison places by the end of 2027, with costs expected to be at least £4 billion higher than initially estimated.
On Thursday, Ms Rayner also gave Marks & Spencer approval to bulldoze and rebuild its flagship Oxford Street department store.
