137 Business Meetings, Zero Environmental Groups: How the UK Shaped Its AI Datacentre Policy

Senior UK officials met 137 businesses to shape the country's AI datacentre policy — and not a single environmental organisation. That asymmetry is the headline finding of an investigation published by the nonprofit Spotlight on Corruption, which spent 12 months and 40 freedom of information requests mapping how the government built its flagship "AI growth zones" programme.

The numbers are stark. Between July 2024 and June 2026, ministers, permanent secretaries and directors general held meetings with 137 businesses, some of them several times, to discuss Britain's datacentre policy. In the same window, senior officials met only two community groups and zero environmental organisations.

Kamila Kingstone, a campaign lead at the NGO, said: "The government totally failed at the most senior level to speak to environmental NGOs or community groups when developing its flagship policy on AI datacentres. This is despite the serious environmental implications of its plans."

What did the investigation actually uncover?

Spotlight on Corruption filed 40 FOI requests to 18 government agencies, seeking details of meetings and investment figures tied to the growth zones programme. The requests covered the period from July 2024 to June 2026.

The findings point to what the group calls a "considerable revolving door" between government and the AI industry. Thirty-eight ministers, senior civil servants and special advisers left government for positions at AI companies between July 2024 and September 2026, according to the investigation. Nine of them came from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), the department at the centre of Britain's AI strategy.

The departing officials included:

• a former minister for AI and intellectual property
• a former AI adviser to the prime minister
• a former director of AI opportunities
• a deputy director of AI international policy
• a head of AI engineering

And the top officials weren't just leaving for any industry jobs — they were joining companies including OpenAI and Anthropic, the two most prominent AI developers in the world.

Why do the growth zones matter?

AI growth zones were a groundbreaking policy under which the government promised to "turbocharge the economy" and create jobs by building massive datacentres across five regions. In the words of former prime minister Keir Starmer, the policy would put the country on a course of "mainlining AI into the veins" of Britain.

The stakes are considerable. The policy aimed to pave the way for datacentres larger than any built in the UK so far, often in partnership with US tech companies, with promises of thousands of jobs. Those promises are now under strain.

Investigations by the Guardian have called the policy into question, suggesting it rests on assumptions that do not hold up, financial figures that were not audited and exaggerated projections for job creation. The Guardian has also shown there is little realism behind announced plans to power these developments with purpose-built renewables. Different government departments appear to diverge on how much electricity the UK's datacentre plans will actually require — and therefore on what their environmental cost will be.

That unresolved question is precisely why the absence of environmental voices in the policymaking room matters. A programme that could consume vast amounts of power and water was designed without input from the groups most focused on measuring those impacts.

What does the transparency gap look like?

The report also found that even the limited civil society engagement that did occur came too late to matter. The government met a handful of civil society groups, but those meetings were "held a few days before the launch of the policy, meaning they had no meaningful input", according to the report.

There is a further blind spot. Many more meetings between businesses and Starmer's administration would never have been disclosed at all, Spotlight on Corruption said, because the policy was led by a special adviser, Jade Leung, whose role was subject to far less stringent transparency requirements than those applying to civil servants or ministers.

The group's conclusion is blunt: previous policy was largely shaped by conversations with business, and the government "failed to take the environmental and social impacts [of datacentres] seriously".

How does the UK compare with other countries?

Spotlight on Corruption also examined how peer countries developed their datacentre policies. It looked at Canada, Germany and Australia, and found that all three consulted far more widely on introducing datacentres and applied more stringent environmental criteria.

The UK, the group said, has "fallen behind equivalent jurisdictions" in developing an equitable strategy for datacentre development.

What about the growing public backlash?

Opposition to datacentres is already building in Britain. Campaign groups have protested against planned developments in places ranging from Auchtertool, a rural village north of Edinburgh, to Brick Lane in east London. The pattern spans both countryside and city, and it echoes a much larger movement in the United States.

Chi Onwurah, the MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West, said the backlash — and the far larger opposition in the US — should serve as a warning that the government needs broader community input.

"It is critically important that AI benefits communities and is also shaped by them," Onwurah said. "I've been concerned about what we've seen in the US, where there's a strong feeling that datacentres are being imposed without adequate consultation. We can see the backlash influencing the midterms. It's really important that communities are involved in datacentres and AI growth zones and see the benefits."

How has the government responded?

A government spokesperson defended the approach while insisting the door remains open to critics.

"We are clear that datacentres should create British jobs, strengthen supply chains and deliver benefits for the communities that host them, while prioritising clean power and using water responsibly – and meet with these companies to make sure that happens," the spokesperson said. "We want to work closely with industry, local authorities, environmental groups and communities, and welcome opportunities to hear their views."

The spokesperson also pointed to existing mechanisms: "For most proposed datacentre developments, community benefits are considered through the relevant local planning processes. We have already announced measures which will enable local authorities hosting datacentres in AI growth zones in England to keep all the additional business rates they generate."

What happens next?

The investigation lands at a moment when the government's datacentre ambitions face pressure on three fronts: questioned job projections, unresolved electricity demands, and street-level opposition. Spotlight on Corruption's findings suggest the policymaking process itself may now become part of the story, with the documented 137-to-zero imbalance between business and environmental meetings offering critics a concrete measure of whose voices shaped the programme — and whose did not.