Welcoming our MP to our Farnborough campus

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Visiting our site

Alex Baker, MP for Aldershot, spent the morning at our Farnborough data centre last week to see our ongoing FRN2 data centre construction and get a feel for what the site does for the area she represents. Elected in 2024 as Aldershot’s first ever Labour MP, Alex Baker lives with her family in Farnborough, at the heart of the constituency she represents. As the MP for Farnborough, the birthplace of British aviation, and Aldershot, the home of the British Army, she has championed the Armed Forces and defence industries both in Parliament and across the UK. Drawing on her private sector background, Alex is passionate about the area’s future and is working to attract investment, support businesses and create skilled jobs to the local area.

She was keen to see firsthand how the data centre creates opportunities for local people and supports businesses in the area.

What's being built, and why it matters

FRN2 is the second facility on our Farnborough campus, following the same design principles as MCR2 in Manchester, which was completed in June 2025. With national conversation around data centres currently dominated by arguments about AI, hyperscale campuses and grid capacity, it’s easy to forget that most of the sector is quieter than that – it’s infrastructure for ordinary commerce, and it sits in places like Cody Technology Park.

The legislation question

During her visit, we discussed the fact that successive changes to planning and energy policy have made new data centre projects harder to get off the ground. On paper, it seems that the process should be easier. Data centres were designated critical national infrastructure in September 2024, which was broadly welcomed, and the National Planning Policy Framework was reformed in the same year, so local authorities must now consider the need for data centres when setting policy. Since then, data centre projects have been able to opt into the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project regime, which moves approval to the Secretary of State and shortens consenting times.

In practice, however, the bottlenecks have far from disappeared. Grid connection queues are a significant issue with demand-side connection applications (from 41GW to 125GW) rising more than 300% between November 2024 and June 2025 – a large share of that queue is speculative data centre schemes that may never get built (source: Herbert Smith, Freehills Kramer). Ofgem is now consulting on a data centre commitment fee and queue management milestones to push non-viable projects out of the way. And Alex outlined the work she was doing to accelerate the connection enhancements planned for Cody Technology Park.

The sustainability discussion

During the visit, we walked Alex Baker through how the site is run. The water question comes up first with most visitors, so we were able to explain how our move away from adiabatic cooling cut our water use substantially, and our closed-loop chiller design cools the hot air the servers produce and recirculates it, rather than pumping it out.

We only use REGO-backed 100% renewable energy and report through GRESB, which means an external body checks our claims rather than leaving it up to us to decide what to report on. And our switch to the use of HVO fuel for our back-up generators adds another dimension to our sustainability initiatives.

Cody Technology Park as an asset

Our location on Cody Technology Park was also of interest to Alex Baker. The site holds a concentration of defence, aerospace and technology firms that is unusual outside a handful of UK clusters. Alex Baker frequently visits the site and wants government to understand the importance of the park to the region.

She also asked about our clients, many of whom are local businesses, a reminder that the relationship between us and our clients is more direct than people generally assume. Rather than being an abstract concept where people leave their IT equipment, we actually partner closely with our clients, and our Farnborough facility hosts many companies with a Hampshire postcode.

Skills development and apprentices

Alex Baker is rightly very interested in education and opportunities for young people locally. Aware that we have close ties to Farnborough College of Technology, as well as other organisations like Good Future Foundation, she asked us to consider what we need from the education system in order to provide the pipeline of young talent our sector needs. We need engineers, yes, but also project managers, service management staff, security specialists, commercial staff, and network engineers. During her visit, she met one of our apprentices who joins us in October, having first come to us on a nine-week placement from Farnborough College of Technology – proof that the pathway works.

The conversation continues...

We were pleased to connect with Alex Baker MP, whose focus on supporting our local region is clear. Farnborough is where we build, where several of our team live as well as work, and where a good number of our clients are based. The conversation will continue, because a constituency MP with strong local interests is better placed than most to push the agenda on the things that matter to the local area.

If you are looking to migrate your business-critical IT off premise, we would urge you to get in touch and come and visit one of our data centres. Seeing the site, meeting the team and understanding what the facility actually does is by far the best basis for a decision.

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