Greens back North East data centre pause and no Hartlepool nuclear

The Green Party's deputy leader says a new generation of small nuclear power stations is not a solution to rising energy bills.

The government hopes to have a new generation of modular reactors up and running in the mid-2030s, including 12 planned for Hartlepool, but Rachel Millward told the BBC new nuclear still takes too long to develop.

Speaking ahead of her party's annual conference in Brighton, Millward also said the party was looking to pause the development of data centres to ensure they are built in more sustainable ways.

Work has already begun on a giant artificial intelligence campus at Cambois in Northumberland, while part of the Teesworks site has been earmarked for a data centre.

Restating the Green Party's commitment to wind and solar, Millward said: "The gap between greenlighting the [nuclear] project and actually getting the energy is huge.

"I think the most important thing is that we are investing in the most effective and fastest way, which is renewables, and that will be millions more jobs for people.

"That is the economy of the future, at the moment the green policy does not support nuclear."

Millward also said her party does not want to ban data centres but does want a temporary halt on their development to find the best way of making them work for the environment and communities.

"We need to do this in the most effective, sustainable and efficient way," she said.

"What we're seeing at the moment is at hyperscale and it's basically benefiting US tech giants rather than our communities.

"It's astonishing the amount of power they use. They're causing heat and noise for local communities.

"So we need to get the places for them right, the form right and the tech right."

Pressed on whether her party could win parliamentary seats in the North East at the next election, Millward said she was not revealing which constituencies the party was targeting at the moment.

But she claimed Green Party success had changed the direction of the country by unseating Keir Starmer and changing his party's policies.

She said: "The more Greens in parliament, the more Green-led councils there are, the more we push this Labour government in the right direction."

The BBC has been talking to leading political figures from the main parties ahead of their conferences.

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