ENTERPRISE AND DATA CENTRES Seeking an answer in the clouds …….

Kevin with ACES Eastern Branch Chair Alan Richards and Daphne Adeji from Google

Kevin is Head of Strategic Projects at Broxbourne Borough Council and a long-standing member of ACES Eastern Branch.

Theobalds Enterprise Centre 

Theobalds Enterprise Centre

Back in October 2024 the intrepid souls of the Eastern Region Branch of ACES took the plunge to travel south to the fringes of the M25 and visit Broxbourne in Hertfordshire, to savour the delights of a new building known as the Theobalds Enterprise Centre (TEC). 

This is a Broxbourne Council development constructed partially with Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) financing and partially with the council’s own cash to provide a facility for start up businesses and growing businesses in the southern part of the borough, to mirror a successful facility built around 10 years ago in the north of the borough in Hoddesdon. TEC opened its doors to new business in September 2023 and is now around 60% occupied, providing office suites of between 16 sq m and 52 sq m, including ground floor workspaces as well as a conferencing facility that can cater for anywhere up to 120 guests. 

Conference facility used by members of ACES Eastern Branch

The basis of occupation is fully inclusive (including IT, rates, rent, cleaning, parking, etc) with tenants responsible for their own electricity bills (all offices have individual metering), the building roof is covered with solar panelling and as well as contributing to the powering of the building, this also assists the electric vehicle charging points within the car park. The bike shed also has solar powered electric bike charging points. 

An emerging mega data centre 

Anyway, next door to this wonderful new facility, now fully emerged from the ground and in the process of being fitted out, is the reason TEC could be constructed in the first place…..a new mega data centre to be occupied by …….. shhhhh it’s a secret …or it was, involving an investment of circa £800 million. 

Way back before Covid disrupted everything, a pair of local entrepreneurs formed a company called STX A10 and engaged with a local farmer to protect a site for the possible future development of a data centre in a location just north of the M25 and adjacent to the A10 near Junction 25 of the M25. The site known as Maxwells Farm and having a bit of local history attached to it in the crash landing of an American World War II bomber, piloted by a Lieutenant Ellis, having diverted away from the urban settlement of Cheshunt and avoiding the killing of any civilians. All the crew lost their lives and Lt Ellis has a road named after him and the crew are commemorated with a memorial just to the north of this site. 

Prior to submitting a planning application, the intrepid pair, Mr Clive Thomson and Mr Mike Lodge, held a meeting in the nearby Theobalds Park Hotel (where Temple Bar, one of the gateways to London, resided prior to its reinstatement in Paternoster Square) to run through their proposals to provide a data centre with an as yet to be named tenant on the site. A number of questions were of course put forward, such as will this bring jobs to the local community, will the development be sustainable, and a key one (ok I asked it) will the heat generated from the data centre be used to source local heating projects in the future. 

The answers to these questions were varied but the heat exchange principles were accepted. 

A planning application was eventually submitted and was being considered, alongside the council’s new Local Plan and, as this site was situated within the existing Green Belt, it formed part of the council’s Green Belt revisions contained within the Local Plan to allow for housing and other redevelopments proposed within this relatively small borough. 

The new Local Plan was adopted on 23 June 2020 and an outline planning permission for the data centre and other associated development was granted later that day. 

During the negotiations leading to the s106 agreement, it was agreed that an area of land to the front of the site adjoining the A10, that was to be a business park, would be transferred to the council, at a peppercorn, on the proviso that the council used part of the land to develop out a new enterprise centre (as detailed previously). Additionally, the planning condition to ensure that the excess heat to be generated by the data centre could be utilised in existing and/or future developments was placed in the permission. There were of course many other strands to the s106 of benefit to the local community. 

The proposed end user was still not revealed, and a number of council officers were requested to enter into a non-disclosure agreement to enable discussions over the proposals to be worked up into detailed designs, and for collaboration in providing the required infrastructure for all parts of the development to be progressed. 

I can now reveal, of course, that the end user is to be Google and the construction work on the depot, which began in January 2024, is now well advanced and hoping to be completed in mid-2025. The extent of the construction was viewed by the Eastern Branch members as part of the visit to TEC and many questions were asked of the Google construction team by our members. 

But back to the emerging story, early meetings during the Covid restrictions were of course to be held online, which presented a slight conundrum for the council officers. Although we had the necessary equipment for online meetings, by a remarkable stroke of luck, all officers had been given laptops in January 2020; our only authorised software package at that moment was for Microsoft Teams. Therefore the request to meet via Google Meet had to be turned down, initially, and meetings had to be on Teams and then Zoom, before we could finally use Google Meet. 

An emerging enterprise centre – with risks 

The land to be transferred to the council was subject to a few conditions. A detailed planning permission was obtained before the land could be transferred. Another conundrum emerged - the council had applied for, and had been granted, funding from the LEP amounting to £5m - approximately 50% of the projected development costs - but, as is commonplace with such projects, the money was time limited, and if the council was to wait for the land transfer to complete, the grant/loan money would not be available and therefore the project would not be started, let alone completed. Therefore, based on the conditions for the transfer of the land (a serviced site was one of them) and the progress being made by STX A10 on delivering this aspect, the council took the plunge and commenced the construction of TEC on a building licence, with loads of crossed fingers and a few fallback options should matters go awry. 

The construction, which commenced in October 2021, wasn’t without hitches, not least the inflationary action on materials and build costs, but also problems with utility hook ups, notably Thames Water. These were overcome and then the final irony hit the project, the installation of the required fibre and technology. Now consider who are going to be our neighbours when it was discovered that getting broadband to the site was delayed by six months beyond the final handover of a completely constructed building. This was in the main due to the road closures required (of the A10) but also initial problems with sourcing a supplier and a reluctance from the Post Office to supply us with a postcode! 

Anyway, all obstacles were finally overcome and the entire project came through within budget, all conditions for the LEP funding were met, and the land transferred to the council ahead of the build being complete with all services (bar the IT) being in place. 

So, the now named Theobalds Enterprise Centre, situated in Innovation Place was now accessed from the A10 via Platinum Way (so named for obvious reasons). However, the construction of the data centre hadn’t commenced and we still were not able to refer to the proposed end user. The council engaged Oxford Innovations to run TEC on its behalf, but any marketing couldn’t use Google as a hook. 

Google goes public 

Then as if by magic, Google decided that the company was going to commence building, and not only that, the remainder of the land the council had been transferred, which was to be part of the new business park, it wanted to rent from the council for car parking for its contractors. So not only was the name released (amid some fanfare in the press at the time) and the local community became aware as Google carried out its engagements with the local community and started liaising with the local schools etc, but the council was also to receive an income stream from the undeveloped land. 

Google is being very proactive in its engagement with the local community as the building progresses, holding regular meetings at the TEC, which is now some 65% full with new and emerging local businesses creating a new buzz and set up for the area. 

The vision, plus hard work, heart ache and frustrations, of two men was now successfully underway after years of slog, capital investment and hope, with my little input of ensuring that future technology and systems can benefit from the heat waste also being in place. 

The overall area of Theobalds Business Park is slowly emerging with TEC already in place and the data centre approaching completion, the rest of the business park (not extensive) will fall into place quite quickly thereafter. The council’s faith and courage to not only grant what could be seen as a controversial planning permission, but then to progress its own development ahead of the main player actually committing, can be seen as a successful venture already. 

Broxbourne Council is again punching above its weight, and following on from being an Olympic venue in 2012, now has a major international player in its midst, with the promise of still more to follow in the coming years …so watch this space [Ed – I will Kevin!].