Legal & General-backed London data centre finally gets planning approval

Local government ministers have unanimously approved planning proposals for what is set to be one of London’s largest data centres.

The £750m development in the Newham borough of London is joint-funded by asset management firm Legal and General (L&G) and digital infrastructure investor Goldacre.

It will be able to deliver from 77 up to 90 megawatts of power in a single building by early 2027 and is expected to contribute £88m to Newham’s gross value added (GVA), creating over 1,000 jobs and attracting around 500 high-growth data businesses.

Managing director of digital infrastructure at L&G, Matteo Colombo, said the data centre “signals our continued support for the Borough through the provision of catalytic capital to develop vital assets and boost productivity in this vibrant part of London.”

Developed by sineQN, the data centre also has the potential to be a heat source for thousands of homes in Newham.

David Bloom, founder and chief executive of Goldacre, said: “The planning approval marks a significant milestone, not only for Newham but for London’s broader digital infrastructure.

“It has been over a decade since we invested in our first data centre, and we have gone on to make a number of successful investments in this space, with Newham as the latest addition.

“Both the sector and the processes involved have experienced a coming of age, there could not be a better time to invest in data centres,” he added.

Earlier this year, Bloom told City AM the new development will help plug a “significant lack” of computing power capacity in certain parts of the country, such as London.

It comes as demand for data centres is booming as countries look to ramp up their AI training and as the usage of large language models, such as ChatGPT and Gemini, increases.

Earlier this week, US firms Cyrusone, Cloud HQ, Coreweave and Servicenow revealed plans to inject a combined £6.3bn in funding into the UK’s data centre industry.

The government hailed the billions of pounds of investment into UK data centres as a “vote of confidence in Britain” during the flagship International Investment Summit.