UK Labour Party promises end to datacenter planning 'barriers' The UK's opposition Labour Party – which boasts a sizable poll lead heading into July's general election – has promised to ease planning restrictions holding back investment in datacenters. In a keynote speech at London Tech Week, the party's science and technology spokesperson, Peter Kyle, yesterday said if Labour won the …
Don't be ridiculous, Number One! Who'll be able to type that safely? It will be "secret", of course, because passwords must be kept secret. Or swordfish. Actually, I was also thinking about the days of the week or the dish of the day down in the canteen, because Johnny Foreigner wouldn't think of anything like that but then I thought about our Scottish friends…
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For a certain definition of "nice" certainly. As a former resident of the area, for me it's still just a grassed over landfill site right bounded on one side by the grim industrial estates of Hillingdon, on the other by the country's busiest motorway, and within earshot of our busiest airport. A very good site (subject to power feeds) for a DC. The reason it didn't go ahead was simply because Conservative voters on the other side of the M25 want a sterile zone between them and the hoi-polloi of the metrollops, and the sacred principle of "green belt" was applied.
The reason it didn't go ahead was because it doesn't comply with the planning laws that specifically say you cannot develop on greenbelt land. That's the whole point of greenbelt.
After being refused twice by the council and again by the secretary of state, the developer has submitted the same unlawful proposal yet again in the hope that the next secretary of state will allow it.
Hard agree on the lack of inspiration. I suppose some of their soft "commitment to transport" blurb could be hiding punchy - but weirdly controversial - policies (such as reopening stations (or building new stations) to enable more local/regional rail travel) in order to avoid opening wedge arguments like HS2 right before the election. But none of it really sells a vision of where they want to take the country though. It's all counched in an idea that we can't afford nice things, when we absolutely can - but they still treat public spending and infrastructure investment as a dirty word, or at best a necessary evil.
As for oil... North Sea is into diminishing returns. If they want to cut energy costs then they need to change how the energy market works. Bringing more oil to market isn't likely to massively change that.
Frankly, I'm not sure why they don't just spend some cash on building out a new mega state-owned solar panel factory (nationalise one of our domestic manufactureres with a huge investment) and then give them out to councils/schools/hospitals for free, and to the private sector at cost.
Re the £1bn for a solar panel plant. History shows that Labour are worse than the tories for pigs in the trough. So this will magically morph into £100bn and be rather late.
So wind the clock forward an election or two and we will be back to the tories being hated for implementing massive austerity cuts to fix the planet sized hole labour made in our finances again.
What this country needs is a change of attitude - there are many very capable people but as a country we have a ‘can’t do, rights not responsibilities’ attitude which holds us back.
PPE Medpro controversy: It was reported that Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone (pictured in 2013) and her children had secretly received £29 million of profits to an offshore trust from government PPE contracts, which she had lobbied for during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A fifth of UK government contracts awarded to respond to the covid-19 pandemic last year contained red flag indicators of possible corruption, a report has concluded. The campaign group Transparency International UK identified 73 “questionable contracts” worth more than £3.7bn (€4.3bn; $5.1bn) in total that warranted further investigation. Most of these (65), worth £2.9bn, were for personal protective equipment. By value, the 73 contracts accounted for 20% of all reported contracting for the UK’s covid-19 response between February and the end of November 2020. All 73 should now be subject to “detailed audits by relevant authorities,” the report said.
The concept is the same in the US - during both R and D admins.
When I see your statement "History shows that Labour are worse than the tories for pigs in the trough" it tells me you are not interested in solving a corruption problem - instead only interested in opportunistically using it to ensure your party is in front of the trough.
Solving the corruption problem would probably require walking each MP from the houses of parliament to Westminster bridge while the tide is on the way out and shoving them over the edge.
Add to the above wasted money the billions in fraudulently claimed benefits. Someone managed to claim a UC advance in my name. Turns out that no-one ever spoke to the person or did any due diligence and just handed over £1400 to a random bank account. I spoke to a very helpful but very frazzled lady who after checking a few details said that it would be passed to the fraud team and about 6 months later I got a letter saying 'soz, our fault, don't worry'.
But none of it really sells a vision of where they want to take the country though.
None of the parties is bothered with vision. There was a time when they had a clear idea of where they wanted to take the country, and were able to explain and defend it. Now they just run focus groups to see what people would like them to think, and say they'll do that. No vision, no principles, no clue.
The party bosses aren't leaders any more, just followers, and no-one wants to vote to choose followers.
North Sea is into diminishing returns. If they want to cut energy costs then they need to change how the energy market works. Bringing more oil to market isn't likely to massively change that
Agreed, but while pursuing some sort of joined-up thinking on energy (if only!) that would phase out fossil fuels, it's better to use our own oil than to shut down local production and rely on expensive imports. Didn't we learn that lesson with cars, TVs, etc?
"it's better to use our own oil than to shut down local production and rely on expensive imports"
Our own oil is (in production terms) amongst the most expensive in the world; However the global market sets the wholesale price and then government add taxes of up to 80% on top. North Sea oil is well below our demand, so we're always reliant on imports. The value of North Sea reserves is mainly a small number of high value jobs in Scotland, and a marginal reduction in the UK's balance of trade deficit.
"Frankly, I'm not sure why they don't just spend some cash on building out a new mega state-owned solar panel factory (nationalise one of our domestic manufactureres with a huge investment) and then give them out to councils/schools/hospitals for free, and to the private sector at cost."
Hopefully because they understand that at a latitude of 50-53 degrees north, solar is the worst possible choice of renewable. It gives an annual average capacity factor of around 9%, its peak output is when daytime demand is lowest, and in Nov. Dec, Jan the capacity factor is around 3%. PV is a shocking waste of resources in the UK for that reason, rather than the cost per MWh. If you want renewables at scale then the answer is not PV, but offshore wind on a vast scale, which has a capacity factor around 46% although even that has its own downsides, and the actual power cost is about as expensive as Hinkley Point.
I don't believe them. Or any other political party at the moment.
As it's election time, they'll promise anything to anyone to get the votes to stay on the gravy train of being in parliament.
Heard too many promises from people with different coloured rosettes over the years, that as soon as they got the job, deny ever saying such things, even when you show them the manifestos.
Datacentres, just like any other industrial site, need to make sure they can provide the necessary services: mainly electricity, and access before permission can be granted. They'll be touted as massive investments but usually, once the building has finished they'll be a handful of techies to run the place and some head-the-balls for security. Ex-industrial sites should make a great fit but it's normally cheaper to build on open ground.
Be interesting to see the amount available and also the geograhic distribution. Putting everything along the M4 corridor is appealing but it does seem to be ignoring the idea of systemic risks.
Maybe there are some new towns that would be improved by being turned into data centre centres? Do something sensible with the roundabouts of Milton Keynes. Sort of along John Betjeman's immortal lines of "Come lovely bombs and fall on Slough"; "Come lovely developers and bulldoze Basildon".
What do you think?
If they are going to do that, can we have the land back that were going to need to put substation extensions on? Or build new ones at rate of knots hitherto unknown?
To say nothing of the supply chain FOR building substations now being so choked US suppliers are considering buying chinesium garbage with short lifetimes just because they are there, not because they are any good or fit for a reliable system.
Roadworks for the fibre laying too, don't forget. Or at least wood poles to put em on.
I'm all for a change of central government but a wish list needs to be refined for details.
This is all well and good (supposedly), but if we dont have the power capacity then the whole point is moot. Eg a DC was planned to be built in part of west london was kyboshed - https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252523510/Datacentre-sector-hits-back-at-claims-that-West-London-electricty-grid-capacity-crunch-is-its-fault
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