Why was North Yorkshire’s bid to become an AI growth zone knocked back?

The Government needs to come up with a clear explanation of why North Yorkshire’s bid to become an AI growth zone has been knocked back. If the Government wants to empower communities then it needs to be transparent when bids such as this are impacted. It can’t just simply point at the published bid criteria and say that “all bids are assessed on their individual merits”.

The fact that the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority put forward the bid shows that there is a willingness on the part of local leaders and indeed local businesses to seize the opportunities presented by frontier technology.

No part of Yorkshire wants to be left behind. The region has the innovation, skills base and is ready to develop the required infrastructure to get ahead and deliver much needed growth.

Last year, Mayor David Skaith said the region had a “bold and credible plan that could transform the economic future of Yorkshire and the Humber”.

It was a plan that had the backing of North Yorkshire Council, Drax Power Station, and the University of York, as well as a host of other public and private sector organisations. Officials claimed the plans could provide an £85bn boost to Yorkshire’s economy.

The decision to reject the bid is therefore nothing short of a body blow for the region. An integral part of the region’s bid to become an AI Growth Zone was power station operator Drax’s plan to build a large data centre.

Drax has said that it still intends to go ahead with its plans for a data centre at the company’s Selby site and will submit a planning application for the first phase of the scheme “in the coming months”. That will soften the blow for the region and hopefully sends out a signal that the region is not to be overlooked as the AI revolution sweeps across the globe.