Will Brick Lane’s Truman Brewery become a data centre?

0:02For today's story, there are a lot of elements at play. There's a£500 million redevelopment plan. There's Labour's data centre ambitions. There's Brick Lane's heritage. Tower Hamlet's residents' desperate need for housing. The push for economic growth in the UK. This situation is a political power keg. Hi, I'm Tamara Kormornyk and welcome back to The Standard Podcast. If you're new here, hit follow and give us a rating. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. Coming up, the bitter battle over the future of Truman Brewery. The Truman Brewery Estate, a historic East London site that dates back to 1666, could soon include a cinema, more shops and restaurants, a microbrewery honouring the site's legacy, and, peculiarly, a data centre.

0:57The proposed plans to redevelop the site have been hotly contested by local residents for years, but they actually could be a blueprint for redevelopment schemes across the city if they get the go-ahead in May. In today's episode I hit the cobbles of Brick Lane to speak to businesses operating in the Truman Brewery to gauge their views about the planning proposals. But first a conversation with the Standards Business Editor Jonathan Prynne about the plans and the broader political and economic implications the decision has for London.

1:30hi Jonathan thanks so much for joining me always a pleasure so I want to start with asking you why would Truman Brewery Estates include a data center in their proposed plans to redevelop the site yeah on the face of it looks odd doesn't it um putting a data center smack in the middle of pretty central London on an old brewery site that was making beer for the best part of 300 years. The reason why it's a great site for a data center in the eyes of the developer is Brick Lane is so incredibly close to the city. Less than a mile, you can see the towering, gleaming skyscrapers of Bishopsgate from the brewery site.

2:18Now, City of London in particular and Docklands have an absolutely massive requirement, demand for high-speed data processing and data storage, partly because of the huge amounts of trading that they do. And those traders benefit from their data centers being as close as possible to where they're operating due to something called latency, which is basically the kind of speed at which those calculations and that number crunching essentially is being done, and those dealing instructions as well. You might not think it would make much difference, but the difference between having a data center a few hundred yards away and 20 miles away can be huge, measured in sort of milliseconds, obviously.

3:10And even at that level, it can give you a competitive advantage. So traders, financial institutions, they like their data centers to be near as possible to where their operations are due to this latency factor. There are very few sites suitable for a data center so close to the city, which is, I imagine, why the developers have included a data centre in their plans. The sceptical view is that Truman Brewery Estates included the data centre to just get the plan over the line. If this is the case, do you think we'll see lots more planning proposals with data centres attached to them? It's so interesting, isn't it?

3:53I heard several people say from the Save Brick Lane campaign, which is the sort of umbrella group for the opponents to this proposal. Several people said, oh, they only put a data center in because last year data centers were reclassified as strategic national infrastructure, which gives them a big advantage in the planning process. It puts them alongside absolutely essential infrastructure like reservoirs and power stations and things like that. So yeah, there was a sort of cynical view that they've included a data center for one reason and one reason only, and that is to game, as they call it, the planning system.

4:35There's no evidence to suggest that. But yeah, there's no doubt that data centers are a really, really hot topic for government at the moment. Quite literally. Quite literally, absolutely. Yeah, they do generate an awful a lot of heat. And what some of the campaigners are saying is not only do they create a lot of heat, but they draw off huge amounts of energy. And the more data centers we build and the government says we need plenty, the bigger those energy demands become and, you know, potentially could crowd out other users of energy. So, yeah, I mean, it's a really interesting debate. What are some of the reasons that local residents oppose the proposed development plan?

5:25Yeah, I mean, primarily, they feel that this is a absolutely massive missed opportunity to build much needed affordable housing in an area with the highest waiting list in the country, an acute housing shortage, severe overcrowding issue in Tower Hamlets. So they say, well, look, we've got this site it's an incredible site very central but you're only proposing to put 44 housing units on it of which only 11 are affordable and i think of that only six maybe are for social rent which is the the cheapest form of affordable housing and that's not good enough um so campaigners have drawn up uh with the council an alternative blueprint uh which they say you know could be affordable and and and viable and that has about 350 homes on it obviously without the um the more you know commercial elements of the deal that the of the development that the uh that the developers are are suggesting and i think of those 350 units uh i think i'm right saying there's 44 for social rent or certainly affordable so it's a much higher level of affordable housing, a much higher level of housing generally.

6:46So that is the battle really. And I think we'll see which way it goes. But I think the feeling is that Steve Reid will probably nod it through. And what does the redevelopment mean for Brick Lane? Well, it's a concern. I mean, Brick Lane is one of the most famous sort of destinations in London now. And it's got this incredibly vibrant charm, this ecosystem of independent traders, obviously the famous curry houses. It's a very, very vibrant, diverse retail and hospitality area. And I think the worry is, with this development, you'll get much bigger kind of brands coming in and forcing up the rents in the area.

7:38And that'll destroy this sort of rather wonderful, but rather fragile and vulnerable ecosystem of independent businesses. That is a concern that you hear a lot as well. What I find really interesting about the story is the political backdrop that surrounds the planning process. Could you tell us a bit more about that? Yes, it is very interesting and it's quite complicated. So this application has been knocking around for several years. It finally came to the council last summer. The council rejected it. The application has now been called in by Steve Reid, the Labour Secretary of State for housing.

8:28So it's his shout, ultimately. In the backdrop to all this, of course, we have the May elections, the local elections for all the boroughs in London, including Tower Hamlets, which Labour would obviously love to get back control of the council from Aspire. Now, the feeling is that Labour will not risk jeopardising votes in the run-up to the election. aspire are very strong on the ground. They're very tuned in with campaigners against this proposed scheme. And I think the feeling is, if they approve it before the election, that decision could be used against them locally. So to cut a long story short, it's unlikely we're going to see a decision this side of the election.

9:13It's probably more likely to happen towards the summer after the sort of the hue and cry of the elections are over. So it is, it's a politically sensitive one. It's quite a complicated one, very, very much at the mercy of sort of, you know, local, local politics. And obviously, while the story feels local, do you think that it's evocative of wider conversations that are happening within the government at the moment? Yeah, 100%. Because, you know, growth, growth, growth is the mantra of the government. And this is, you know, I think they would see this as a pro-growth development. It's, yeah, I mean, it's a commercially led venture with a data center, as I said, offices, workspaces, and so on.

10:04So, it does chime to those broader national messages. But I think, yeah, and it does chime to the sort of pan-London debate about the lack of affordable housing as well. So, yeah, it's very symbolic I think of some big themes in national and regional politics. Thank you so much Jonathan. Always a pleasure. Sorry I always say that but it always is. We'll take a quick break. Coming up I visit the Truman Brewery estate to speak to local businesses about the planning proposal and what they imagine will happen to Brick Lane over the next few decades.

10:44Welcome back, it's time for a site visit. So I'm currently walking from the London Standards headquarters in Moorgate through to Brick Lane to the Truman Brewery which is the centre of today's story. I'm pacing it along cobbled streets, it's a very blustery January evening and well it's 4.30 but 5.30 somewhere definitely definitely calls for a beer. What better way to honour the legacy of the Truman Brewery?

11:25So I'm just walking down the stairs to London's vintage mecca in the Truman Brewery estate. You can already hear the music blasting, I'm sure. Just full of stands, bags, sports jerseys, sunglasses, you name it, it's all down here.

11:49Among the hubbub of market stalls, I meet Josh, who sells sports memorabilia. I asked him how he felt about the plans and what his biggest concerns were. The biggest feeling for all of us is, are they going to take away Truman Brewery? Are they going to kick all us out and make it just to an event space like all the other fish and food markets that they're doing, you know, like Billingsgate? That's the biggest feeling that we all have is that eventually they're going to figure out that, oh, we can just push all of these lot out and just do event spaces. But if they do that, then you've lost the whole soul of the area because people won't come on the weekends.

12:24All you all have around here is just people coming for the events. Curry houses won't survive. The bagel shop might not even survive. And that's sad because they've been there probably longer than I've been alive. So, yeah, not a great feeling. While Josh feels safe for the moment, he does worry about how he will continue to trade with growing rent costs. If I told you some rent numbers for some of the shops around here, you'd be absolutely mind-blown. It's ridiculously overpriced here now. And I feel like we are being pushed out because of that. you know and i do think that eventually they will want to have just high-end shops here you know i don't know if you know broadgate if that's what they've sort of done there um kind of built something out of nothing and i feel like we could be going down that route here as well especially with all the redevelopment they want to do with housing around here which could be beneficial i'm not trying to just be all negative you know redeveloping housing around here could help but it depends on how they're going to do it in a sense of they're going to kick all the small people out and keep the big businesses in because if they do that then no one's going to come here anymore.

13:27Taurus aren't going to be interested in Brick Lane. It's just going to be the same thing as Camden. The decision has not been made yet and the development will take a number of years but I was curious to hear what Josh thought about the future of Brick Lane. I'm sure in the next 10 years you'll see people that have been here for 30 years start leaving. I've seen it myself with shops on Brick Lane and stalls in the market that people have been here for 20 years and that they're gone and not doing anything now because there are no other markets in London without affordable and they're even closing down like the fish markets and food markets just to have event spaces and I understand that it's easier to run a building as an event space than a market but in 10 years time there'll be no markets left and it would just be event spaces and that's a big soul of London gone isn't it

14:16Having had the chance to speak with multiple business owners in the estate, it was high time that I sat down for a drink and reflected on everything I'd heard. So I've just walked into a local cafe that sells lots of things other than coffee, apparently, and I've just spotted a Truman Lager with my name on it.

14:39Everyone I speak to has a lot of feelings. Unfortunately, not everyone is willing or in the position to come on tape. But I do get the sense that a lot is brewing, if you pardon the pun, when it comes to talking about the redevelopment of this area. There are lots of derelict buildings and you know brick lane is fairly untouched when you compare it with places like camden or even borough market but the night is young starting to get busy and i need to get back to nursing my beer cheers

15:27And that's The Standard. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. If you'd like to get in touch, email us at podcasts at standard.co.uk. We'll be back here tomorrow morning. See you then.