A short drive from London, the town of Potters Bar is separated from the village of South Mimms by 85 acres of rolling farmland segmented by a scribble of hedgerows. In one of the fields, a lone oak serves as a rest stop along a public footpath. Lately, the tree has become a site of protest, too. A poster tied to its trunk reads: “NO TO DATA CENTRE.”
In September 2024, a property developer applied for permission to build an industrial-scale data center—one of the largest in Europe—on the farmland. When locals caught wind, they started a Facebook group in hopes of blocking the project. More than 1,000 people signed up.
The local government has so far dismissed the group’s complaints. In January 2025, it granted planning permission. The following October, multinational datacenter operator Equinix acquired the land; it intends to break ground this year.
On a dismal Thursday afternoon in January, I huddled around a gate leading onto the farmland with Ros Naylor—one of the Facebook group’s admins—and six other local residents. They told me that they object to the data center on various grounds, but particularly to the loss of green space, which they see as an invaluable escape route from town to countryside and buffer against the highway and fuel stop visible on the horizon. “The beauty of walking in this area is coming through this space,” says Naylor. “It’s incredibly important for mental health and wellbeing.”
As the UK government races to meet the voracious demand for data centers that can be used to train AI models and run AI applications, similarly large facilities stand to be built acrossthecountry. For the people who live in closest proximity, though, the prospect that AI might buoy the economy or infuse new capabilities into their smartphone is thin consolation for what they consider a disruption to a countryside way of life.
Bonfire of Red Tape
Since the mid-20th century, London has been hemmed in on all sides by a nearly contiguous patchwork of land known as the green belt, made up of farms, forest, meadows, and parks. Under UK law, construction is only permitted on green belt land in “very special circumstances.” The aim is to protect areas of countryside from urban encroachment and stop neighboring towns from melding into an amorphous blob.
After the present government came to power in 2024, however, the UK introduced a new land classification—grey belt—to describe underperforming parcels of green belt on which construction should be more readily permitted. At around the same time, the government announced it would treat data centers as “critical national infrastructure.” Together, those changes have cleared the way for a raft of new data centers to be built across the UK.
When the local planning authority approved the Potters Bar data center, its officers concluded that the farmland met the definition of grey belt. They also said their decision was colored by the government’s support for the data center industry. The benefits from an infrastructure development and economic standpoint, they concluded, outweighed the loss of green space.
“People have this slightly romantic idea that all green belt land comprises pristine, rolling green fields. The reality is that this site, along with many others, is anything but that,” says Jeremy Newmark, leader of Hertsmere Borough Council, the constituency that encompasses Potters Bar. “It’s a patch of very low-performing green belt land.”
A coroner’s inquest into missing school boy, Noah Donohoe, has confirmed that the PSNI had technical issues with its ControlWorks software used to record information reported to police call handlers by members of the public.
The Belfast Coroner’s court today was shown logs from the PSNI’s ControlWorks software recording a “major ControlWorks issue” that could have delayed information being passed on to investigators.
Computer Weekly previously reported that the PSNI had to resort to pen and paper after the PSNI first installed ControlWorks in May 2019, and that the system had slow-downs that required the system to be re-started or software to be patched.
Donohoe was 14 when his naked body was found in a storm drain in north Belfast in June 2020, six days after leaving home on his bike to meet friends. A post-mortem found the cause of death was drowning.
A witness to the inquest, Connor McConnell, told the Belfast Coroner’s Court that he had made three phone calls to the PSNI after seeing a male cycling naked past the window of his mother’s partners house on the night Donohoe went missing.
McConnell told the inquest that he phoned police twice on the night of Sunday 21 June 2020 and again on 22 June.
He said that he had made the first call to the police on Sunday after seeing a Facebook post about a missing person.
Questions over number of phone calls
Declan Quinn KC, counsel for the coroner, said that the police had no record of McConnell’s first call on the Sunday night after making checks on their system and that the first contact from him was on Monday night.
McConnell told the court that he was as certain as a person could be that he had phoned the police on Sunday night. He said he was told that the original call “might have been lost in the swamp of calls”.
He told the inquest that he remembered the time of his first call because Match of the Day 2 was on TV.
The court heard that the PSNI did not ask McConnell to make a statement until March 2022, two years after he had made the phone calls.
McConnell said he asked the police about his calls when he made the statement and was told that there were a lot of calls at the time and that they could have potentially been missed.
Police log showed issued with ControlWorks
McConnell was shown a log from ControlWorks, from 9pm on 23 June which stated there was a “major Control Works issue in relation to alerts not working or cancelling”.
It added that the problem “may cause issues in relation to timeliness of information being passed on”.
PSNI barrister, Donal Lunny KC, said that the issue with ControlWorks lasted for a couple of hours on 23 June and was resolved that day. ControlWorks was running sub-optimally but was still functioning. “It would not explain your missing call,” O’Connell was told.
When questioned about the calls he made to police, O’Connell said: “You’re welcome to access my phone records and clear it up for yourself.”
“The PSNI have the resources to do it, so why don’t they do it?”
Computer Weekly previously reported that a “major issue” with ControlWorks may have delayed information being passed to police officers searching for Donohoe.
PSNI has not reported ControlWorks issues
Computer Weekly understands that information passed to the police force on the evening of the 24 June from another member of the public about an attempt to sell Donohoe’s laptop, was delayed in being brought to the attention of investigators because of a problem with ControlWorks.
It is unclear exactly how long the information was delayed by and what its impact on the search for the missing teenager was. But it is understood that detectives on the case reported and noted the delay during the live investigation.
The force has not reported incidents with ControlWorks, to the Northern Ireland Policing Board, which oversees the PSNI, and has not mentioned any incidents with ControlWorks in its annual reports.
While there is no legal duty to report failures with ControlWorks to the Northern Ireland Policing Board, the Policing Board has told Computer Weekly it would expect any serious incidents with ControlWorks to be reported to it.
How errors are classified
The PSNI uses ControlWorks as part of its command and control system, for managing, logging and categorising calls received by the emergency services from the public and for dispatching police officers to incidents.
The most serious, which affect force-wide availability of ControlWorks, are categorised as P1 and must be corrected within six hours by the force’s IT suppliers.
A force-wide degradation in the service offered by ControlWorks is categorised as P2 and must be resolved in eight hours.
Less serious incidents are categorised as P3, which must be resolved by the force’s supplier in 24 hours, and P4, which do not require urgent remediation.
The PSNI said in a statement to the Policing Board, in response to enquires by Computer Weekly that ControlWorks did not suffer any “critical incidents”.
Based on the advertised deep contouring and pressure-relieving AirCradle foam, I expected the pressure relief to be a standout feature, but it wasn’t. This is not to say that pressure relief was absent in testing, but it was minimal compared to that of firmer hybrid mattresses I’ve tested such as the DreamCloud Hybrid or the Wolf Memory Foam Hybrid Premium Firm. Which brings me to firmness: By my measure, this was not a “medium” mattress. Saatva rates this mattress between 5 and 7 on the firmness scale, so it falls in the medium-firm range. Unless you’re more than 200 pounds or have a taller build, your body mass would lead to more sinkage. This felt like a true firm mattress, which I’d rate at 7.5 to 8 out of 10. For context, the firmer hybrid mattresses we’ve tested, like the Plank Firm Luxe and Bear Elite Hybrid, reside in the 8 to 10 range of the firmness scale.
To be clear, a firm mattress is not at all a bad thing. The light cushioning for my pressure points, especially my hips, was right on target for back and stomach sleepers. Paired with how much spinal alignment support you get from this mattress, this is an excellent choice for these two sleeping positions. Side sleepers, I’m much more hesitant. In my two-week testing period, I also tried this mattress with Saatva’s Graphite Memory Foam Topper, which was included in the Winter Bundle. That helped significantly to create more cushion to sink into. The downside is that it’s not included with the mattress and costs extra. Athletes will have this available to them in Colorado Springs, but I can’t help but wonder whether, for LA28, it might have been more strategic to go with the Saatva Classic mattress, with its three customizable firmness levels and two heights. However, I can’t even begin to contemplate the logistical headache that would be; I am just a humble mattress tester.
The Saatva Memory Foam Hybrid did well at maintaining a bouncy feel that supported me as I moved between sleeping positions. It also maintained good motion isolation, keeping the bed stable so my husband wasn’t disturbed on his side as I tossed and turned. I wouldn’t label this a cooling mattress, even with the graphite-infused topper. It stayed more temperature-neutral, not amassing excessive body heat, but it didn’t offer a cool-to-the-touch feel either.
Personal Record
Photograph: Julia Forbes
Overall, this is a high-quality offering from Saatva, and based on my testing history with the brand, I expected nothing less. It also comes with Saatva’s free white-glove delivery service, which includes delivery, mattress setup, and haul-away of your old mattress. As someone who hauls around beds every single week, this being part of your purchase is a very big deal. Throw in a 365-night sleep trial with no minimal “break-in” period, plus a lifetime warranty that Saatva offers, and you’ll probably start to understand why I’ve always regarded this brand as one of the best in the game—they know what they are doing.
Richard Corbridge has spent his digital leadership career turning smart ideas into production services. After working for some of the UK’s biggest private and public sector organisations, including the NHS, Boots, and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), Corbridge embraced a fresh challenge in 2024, when he became CIO at property specialist Segro.
Corbridge says the role provides a great education, even for an experienced executive like him. “Taking this role felt like a good chance to learn more,” he says. “The opportunity across the industry, and specifically at Segro, is huge because it is a place that has almost been proud of not adopting too much technology.”
The position also gave Corbridge the chance to work alongside Paul Dunne, Segro’s managing director for operations, digital and customer, whom he’d worked with at Boots. Corbridge was director of innovation and then CIO for the high street chemist between 2019 and 2023, before spending almost two years as chief digital information officer at DWP. He joined Segro in November 2024.
“The property industry is a relationships industry; it’s a people industry,” he says, talking about what he found when he joined the firm. “What this role is testing, probably more than ever before, is my experience of getting to the business language, getting to value first, and making sure that you’re telling the stories in a way that isn’t technology-led.”
Embracing challenges
Corbridge recognises that moving between sectors and organisations affects your digital leadership approach.
“It was something I was mindful of when I left the NHS for Boots,” he says. “Peers, mentors, colleagues and coaches would say the private sector is going to be a lot faster, a lot more ruthless, and would involve a lot more watch-your-back type scenarios, but that didn’t come to bear in reality.”
“Creating efficiency through technology either creates profit for a private organisation or creates efficiency and puts money back in the bank for a public sector organisation”
Richard Corbridge, Segro
Corbridge says organisations differ in strategies and structures, but some important consistencies also allow successful CIOs to move seamlessly between sectors.
“One of the things you learn is that creating efficiency through technology either creates profit for a private organisation or creates efficiency and puts money back in the bank for a public sector organisation,” he says.
“And if efficiency and growth are the two watchwords for digital leaders, then you can apply the principles to what you’re trying to do, whether it’s about making profit for shareholders and looking after customers, or you’re ensuring taxpayers’ money is spent wisely and achieving the goals you want to do.”
Reflecting on the initiatives he’s overseen during his career, Corbridge says he enjoyed taking his healthcare project experience and its focus on making wise bets to the private sector in his role at Boots, where he worked with around 600 IT professionals. He also enjoyed returning to the public sector and applying his experience of fast-paced change at Boots to DWP, where he worked with 5,500 colleagues.
“Now at Segro, I’ve got 35 people working for me, but in an estate of assets across nine countries, a very large amount of money in the organisation itself, and enormous value,” he says. “So, there are different priorities, but, interestingly, the themes within those priorities probably remain relatively similar from a CIO point of view.”
Leading change
Crucially, transformation – which Corbridge describes as creating change and delivering value – is part of his remit at Segro, which he suggests is a wise approach. It’s certainly a change from his previous role at DWP, where Corbridge worked with a director general of transformation who was separate from the digital department.
“At Segro, making a difference with technology, and working with our business to make a difference, is under my ownership,” he says. “After 12 months in this role, my team is making a difference because of how we’re using technology, both from a business and a value completion point of view.”
Corbridge says the general direction of travel for transformation at Segro involves three buckets that will hold his team’s priorities through 2026: implementing new technology alongside trusted partners to simplify complex business processes; making the most of enterprise data assets; and joining up point solutions to deliver business benefits.
“We’re trying not to end up just doing AI [artificial intelligence] for its own sake, and we’re looking at the orchestration that we could do with different technology solutions,” he says, referring to the systems and services that will enable transformation.
“Sometimes that may well be agentic AI, but sometimes it might just involve putting the data in the right place at the right time so people can have it.”
For example, Corbridge refers to his vision of a workbench, which would give the firm’s asset managers access to the information and insights they need to offer customers new opportunities to look after their buildings in the most effective manner and to help the company make the most from its existing client portfolio.
“That approach feels quite different from what some of our peers are doing, where they’re looking at big ERP [enterprise resource planning] replacement or deployment programmes,” he says.
“We took the decision not to do that and to go process by process. It’s about how we simplify the process, get the most out of it, and then bring technology to bear on that process, joining it up as an orchestration layer, instead of having lots of point solutions.”
Making progress
Corbridge addresses each of his transformation aims in turn. First, simplifying complex business processes. For this aim, partners IBM and HCL will play a crucial role.
“We [will] sit down with our two most forward-possible partners to see what they’ve done on a test and learn basis,” he says. “At the start of January, they began with three processes each, reviewed the inherent complexity of those processes, and will now make some technology simplification recommendations.”
Corbridge says this process will help his organisation understand how its technology partners can help reduce complexity, as well as potential timelines, costs and long-term value generation. Deadlines were kept purposefully tight to test the partners, and the results look promising: “I’d go as far as to say that I’ve not seen anything like it in all the different partners that I’ve worked with.”
Open Box Software is another important supplier. This integration specialist manages Segro’s MRI property management system, which Corbridge describes as the company’s operational backbone. He’s working with Open Box to reduce complexity and increase simplicity, and is impressed with the output: “We truly have partners, not vendors.”
When it comes to the second aim of ensuring data supports accurate decisions, Corbridge says his director of data and AI will focus on two important objectives through 2026: establishing strong data governance to guarantee reliability, and getting accurate insights to key people for timely decision-making.
“Getting those elements right sets us up to move faster,” he says.
Finally, Corbridge refers to the aim of joining up point solutions to create business benefits. Here, he points to Sama, which is the Segro asset management app. This bespoke solution has been built by the company over the past two years. The technology team continues to roll out new monthly releases, functionalities and integrations to back-end systems.
“This approach means we can capture data once, store it once, and let others have access to that data,” he says. “Seeing something that has been built specifically for Segro is really exciting because it delivers how our business wants to work and we can deal with the subtle differences that are needed locally in Germany, Czechia, or Poland, without having to standardise everything.”
Adopting technology
In combination, Corbridge says those three transformational aims comprise his digital plan for Segro. He says it’s important to stress that the organisation has a plan instead of a digital strategy.
I want us to be seen as an organisation that is adopting technology, and it’s not a distraction to how we work with customers, where our assets are, or what our value is, but that it’s actually adding to that effort Richard Corbridge, Segro
“I don’t want to sit and write another digital strategy next year because everything’s moving so fast,” he says. “I want to get in there and get some delivery and value released to our business so that we can build excitement and deliver against people’s expectations. So, we’re going to focus on delivery and value this year against those priorities, knowing that, when we get to the end of the year, I want to be able to set the vision for 2027 and 2028 for where we’re going to get to.”
Two years from now, Corbridge expects the firm’s core MRI system will create value by delivering data to people around the organisation. The aim here will be to focus on standardisation and simplification by exploiting Open Box’s orchestration capabilities. He wants to ensure the top 20 tech-enabled processes across Segro are as simple as possible, supported by technology, with data captured once and shared where required.
Corbridge says the rise of consumerisation means people across the organisation have a much greater awareness of technology’s power. Everyone has a smartphone, and many people are using generative AI tools such as ChatGPT at home, never mind at work. This technological exploration means non-IT people will increasingly find their own solutions to business challenges. Corbridge wants to work with the business to hone the best of these ideas.
“Most importantly, I want us to be seen as an organisation that is adopting technology, and it’s not a distraction to how we work with customers, where our assets are, or what our value is, but that it’s actually adding to that effort. And that means a lot to me. We want to provide a clear view of what technology can actually do for this industry,” he says.
“There’s been a whole plethora of commentaries recently with experts saying, ‘At last, the property industry is starting to recruit CIOs. At last, the property industry is starting to adopt digital and technology.’ I want Segro to be synonymous with that march of difference.”
Fashion7 days ago
Tech1 week ago
Entertainment7 days ago
Fashion7 days ago
Fashion7 days ago
Sports7 days ago
Fashion4 days ago