Deputy prime minister stepped in over summer to run rule over Gensler-designed complex rejected last year by Buckingham planners
Angela Rayner has approved plans by Gensler for a controversial new data centre to be built on designated green belt land despite a local council previously blocking the move.
The deputy prime minister, who asked for a second look at the job over the summer, has overturned a decision to stop the development of a site in Iver, Buckinghamshire, on economic grounds due to a lack of alternative sites.
In a letter, planning minister Matthew Pennycook, who took the decision on Rayner’s behalf, said that she agreed with the “planning inspector that failure to meet this need could have significant negative consequences for the UK digital economy”.
The Court Lane scheme was blocked by Buckinghamshire county council last autumn because of worries it would damage the landscape and appearance of the area.
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The site is currently an industrial estate that includes a scrap metal recycling plant.
Others working on the scheme include project manager Linesight, M&E consultant Black and Veatch and structural and civil engineer Hydrock. The scheme is being developed by USAA Real Estates and data centre specialist Corscale.
Last week, Rayner reversed predecessor Michael Gove’s decision to refuse planning for M&S’s plan to redevelop its Marble Arch headquarters.
And she approved plans for a so-called super prison in Lancashire overruling Chorley council’s decision to refuse it because of concerns about the number of inmates, 1,700, set to be housed there. The prison is due to be built by Laing O’Rourke.
Other recent interventions in the built environment including putting on ice last month Stiff & Trevillion’s plans for a 43-storey office tower in the City of London after it amassed more than 1,300 objections from members of the public.
At the start of last month, she called in a housing scheme in Kent hours before Swale borough council had been set to give its verdict on the 8,400-home Highsted Park project, with officers recommending the proposals be refused.
In October, she called in David Chipperfield’s plans to redevelop the former Royal Mint site in east London as the new Chinese embassy.
Yesterday she formally announced plans to allow planning officers to approve applications without permission from committees of councillors if they comply with local plans and the National Planning Policy Framework.
In the run-up to the general election in the summer, one of Labour’s manifesto pledges was “to get Britain building again so we can grow our economy and keep taxes, inflation and mortgages as low as possible”.
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