The UK Government has launched an eight-week consultation to overhaul environmental permitting for data centres and other energy infrastructure, following recommendations in the Corry Review.

The consultation will look into whether a simplified, ‘fit for the future’ framework could help shorten timelines to build energy infrastructure and data centres, while also making it easier to trial new technologies. Proposals include a more common-sense route for approving time-limited trials, for example, using hydrogen as a fuel at industrial sites, to help promising solutions reach market sooner.

The Environment Agency could also introduce a new registration pathway for low-risk installations, explicitly citing data centres and back-up generators. The Government says that this could potentially cut the time it gets to get environmental permits from months to days and lower compliance costs.

It argues that the plans draw on ‘international best practice’, citing the United States as an example, and floats the idea of flexible permits that set an overall emissions cap at site level, rather than regulating each process separately. The intention is to strip out duplication, reduce bureaucracy and still deliver emissions reductions.

Emma Hardy, Air Quality Minister, commented, “Britain is the birthplace of the industrial revolution and supporting science and innovation is a central pillar of our mission to drive economic growth. Through the Plan for Change, our once-in-a-generation reforms will streamline regulation for vital industrial sectors that protects the environment while enabling growth and innovation.”

Why are the reforms necessary? 

The Government argues modernising permits will help industry meet the challenges of the next decade and beyond, delivering clean power, improving air quality, and cleaning up rivers, lakes and seas, while supporting competitiveness.

Philip Duffy, Chief Executive at the Environment Agency, said, “Modernised regulation can help deliver growth, innovation and protect the environment and communities. Today’s consultation marks a positive step forward in efforts to make our regulatory regime fit for the future, with proportionate but robust rules that enable the UK to compete globally whilst supporting nature’s recovery.

“The Environment Agency will match this ambition with improvements in how we deliver the regime, with better IT, faster turnaround times and a commitment to support sustainable growth across the economy.”

The reforms will also be key for the UK to achieve the growth in the data centre sector that is anticipated. Recent analysis by the BBC suggests that the number of UK data centres is set to increase by a fifth in the coming years, with that number at risk without faster planning reform, according to a report from property consultancy Rapleys. 

Environmental permitting plans face backlash

Despite the potential to make it easier for data centres to get permits, there has already been some backlash to the plans – most notably from environmental campaigners. They argue that the proposals spark questions about environmental oversight, particularly for rapidly expanding data centre developments. 

The consultation suggests classing some data centres and back-up generation as ‘low-risk’ for a registration approach, and moving to site-wide emissions caps could change how regulators scrutinise individual processes.

Campaigners point to experiences abroad: rapid data centre build-outs in parts of the US have been linked to water stress and local pollution, with one town in Missouri recently putting a one year pause on all data centre development, while power-hungry AI workloads have intensified scrutiny of energy demand. Some operators there have turned to new coal- and gas-fired capacity to keep pace – raising the question of how flexible permitting can safeguard UK environmental standards as capacity grows.

But the Government argues that the UK has already made significant progress in reducing its environmental footprint – with coal having not generated any electricity in the country since 2024. 

In fact, over the past 30 years, industrial emissions have fallen significantly, with the Government estimating £52 billion in cumulative benefits to human health, ecosystems and labour productivity. However, the Corry Review found parts of the regime to be risk-averse, inefficient and hard to navigate, with innovation slowed by delays.

The consultation proposes to keep proportionate, robust protections while removing duplication, clarifying processes and speeding decisions – particularly for trials and lower-risk activities – so firms can adopt new technologies more quickly.

Plus, despite the bad image projected onto the UK’s data centre industry, it’s far more environmentally responsible than its given credit for. Just recently a techUK report showed how more than half of the country’s data centres use waterless cooling, while many data centre operators in the UK are leveraging clean power sources to keep their data centre running. 

How long the UK Government’s consultation is expected to run

The consultation runs for eight weeks. The Government has not yet indicated when final decisions will be taken, but many within the industry will be hoping for a quick turnaround to ensure they can get building before the AI boom passes us by.