Councillor warns Buckinghamshire will be ‘covered in data centres’ after controversial Government approval

Councillor Trevor Egleton told a Tuesday afternoon meeting (10 December) the ‘openness’ of the green belt was an ‘interesting concept’ he was ‘yet to understand’.

He said: “You can get some exceedingly large structures in the green belt. Do they impact on the openness?

“It won’t matter in the future anyway because it will all be determined by central government and we will be covered in data centres.”

His comments referred to the new government’s proposed changes to planning laws so it can build more homes, and its plans to encourage building on poor-quality or already developed green belt land it has dubbed ‘grey belt’.

The planning reforms will also mean increased housing targets for councils, with Buckinghamshire’s own set to rise by 42 per cent, meaning 4,122 new homes will be needed in the county per year.

Councillor Egleton’s comments also referred to some of the large developments in the green belt being decided on by housing secretary Angela Rayner.

These include plans to build Marlow Film Studios, which Buckinghamshire Council rejected, but which have been called in for a final decision by Ms Rayner.

Meanwhile, there are several plans to build new data centres in south Bucks, one of which the housing secretary recently overturned.

Last week she approved plans by Gensler for a huge data centre in Iver, despite the project previously being blocked by the council.