We’re building an interconnected future. So why are we still talking about infrastructure in silos?

As investment in water, energy and data centres accelerates, the infrastructure supporting Britain’s growth is becoming increasingly interconnected, writes Jimmy Coles of Lexington. But our approach to communicating these developments hasn’t kept pace.

The scale of what is coming forward is significant. Government policy is driving major new energy generation and grid infrastructure. AMP8 alone represents £104bn of investment in water between 2025 and 2030, and rapid growth in AI and data centres is creating new demand for power, water and supporting infrastructure.

We need more infrastructure, and we need to deliver it faster. But the bigger challenge is that these sectors can no longer be looked at entirely on their own. Water and energy are good examples. Water needs energy. It has to be abstracted, pumped, treated and moved around the country before it reaches our homes and businesses, and
wastewater then has to be collected and treated again.

Energy increasingly needs water too. The Government’s 2025 National Framework for Water Resources points to growing demand from parts of the future energy system and calls for much closer collaboration between the two sectors.

Water companies are also increasingly active in energy themselves, generating renewable power from their sites, investing in technologies such as solar and anaerobic digestion and procuring clean energy to support their operations.

Recent developments in energy policy reinforce this growing interdependence. The Government’s announcement of plans for a publicly owned Great British Grid, intended to accelerate electricity connections and unlock investment, reflects a growing recognition that energy infrastructure cannot be considered separately from the economic activity it supports. Whether enabling new data centres, industrial development or housing growth, the availability of supporting infrastructure is increasingly central to what can be delivered, where and when.

The data centre revolution

Data centres add another dimension. Their continued growth relies on access to substantial power, while water availability can also be an important consideration depending on how facilities are designed and cooled. The Government’s own approach to AI Growth Zones reflects this, considering power, water, land, planning and connectivity together.

These are increasingly part of the same infrastructure story. Housing, digital infrastructure and industrial growth all rely on the water and energy networks needed to support them. Policy is starting to catch up. The question is whether our public and political narrative has too.

Joining the dots

Across water, energy and digital infrastructure there is already a lot of good communications and engagement. Companies run strong corporate campaigns, while individual projects often undertake substantial political, stakeholder and community engagement as proposals develop.

The challenge is that communities still tend to encounter infrastructure one project at a time. A new reservoir or pipeline, a solar farm, then perhaps a substation, transmission line or data centre. Each can have a strong case and undertake good consultation. What often gets lost is the relationship between them.

Government research on public engagement around grid infrastructure has already highlighted that communities do not always connect individual local projects with the wider energy transition. It also points to the value of joining up engagement at local, regional and national level.

That principle applies beyond the grid. Communities can see the cumulative impact of new infrastructure without always understanding how the projects fit together. If the wider story has not been established, it becomes increasingly difficult for people to understand the bigger picture as individual projects come forward.

For many people, the first time they encounter the country’s future infrastructure strategy should not be when a consultation leaflet lands on their doormat. That doesn’t mean replacing local consultation with a national campaign. Local engagement still has to answer the difficult questions. Why this project, why here, what are the impacts, what alternatives were considered and what can actually be influenced.

But those conversations would be stronger if they sat within a wider understanding of why investment is happening and how different projects fit together. That means Government, water companies, energy developers, network operators and regional leaders thinking more collectively about the infrastructure story.

We need to explain earlier and more consistently why demand is changing, why resilience matters, how the different systems depend on one another and how investment supports housing, jobs, industry and growth.

The regional story matters

The infrastructure story is increasingly regional as well as national and local. As Mayors and Regional Authorities take a bigger role in growth and planning, developers need to think more carefully about how individual projects fit with wider regional priorities.

A data centre, reservoir or renewable energy project may be promoted individually, but the case for it can sit within a bigger story about investment, jobs, housing, water
resilience, energy capacity and growth. That regional political conversation needs to start early and before formal consultation.

Just as importantly, that story has to work at a local level. Communities need to understand what new infrastructure means for their area, how different projects relate to one another and what tangible benefits new investment can realistically bring.

Getting the narrative right

None of this removes legitimate opposition or concern. Nor should it. People will still have questions about landscape, disruption, environmental impact and whether individual sites are appropriate.

The point is to give those debates proper context. If our infrastructure is becoming more interconnected, the way we explain it needs to become more joined up too. A reservoir, a renewable energy project, a grid connection or a data centre may come forward separately, but they increasingly sit within the same wider story about growth, resilience and the infrastructure the country needs.

•  Jimmy Coles is head of infrastructure engagement at Lexington