UK ministers met AI datacenter firms often, but not green groups

UK ministers spent two years meeting AI datacenter companies and almost no one else, according to a new report. The campaign group Spotlight on Corruption found that 84 percent of the groups ministers met about datacenters, between July 2024 and June 2026, were businesses or private-sector trade groups. Environmental groups got no meetings with ministers or senior officials.

What the report found

The report is called Zoned Out. It says ministers met 137 different businesses in the two-year period. Senior civil servants, including permanent secretaries and directors general, held no meetings with community groups about datacenters.

Ministers met just two community groups. Both meetings came after the decisions to make their areas AI Growth Zones. In one case, the meeting was held on the day the designation was announced.

What AI Growth Zones are

AI Growth Zones are areas where the government wants to make it easier and cheaper to build datacenters, which are large buildings full of computers. Developers get faster planning decisions and better access to electricity infrastructure. The government hopes this will attract billions of pounds in investment.

The report says there was no national public consultation on the plan, even though datacenters can affect electricity supplies, water use and local communities. It found no independent consultations with residents in the chosen areas, though some developers ran their own.

Councils and advisers

• Of ten local authorities and devolved governments tied to the five announced zones, half had no contact beyond their applications.
• Two councils exchanged brief emails. One got a 15-minute meeting with a junior minister.
• The AI Energy Council includes Microsoft, Google and Amazon Web Services but no environmental groups.
• Its Sustainability Working Group met once between April 2025 and July 2026.

The report also counted 38 appointments of former ministers and senior civil servants by AI companies between July 2024 and September 2026. Nine of them had worked at DSIT, the government's technology department. Unpaid advisers do not have to declare meetings the way ministers do, so the full picture of influence is unclear.

What happens next

Spotlight wants a pause on new AI Growth Zones and datacenters until consultation rules are tightened. It also wants developers to disclose how much electricity and water they will use, and the emissions they will produce. It says Germany, Canada and Ireland have held national consultations. The material does not say how the government has responded.