Prater Raines

01/10/2026

For a few reasons, we were over the last few days checking the sustainability statements of our data centres Custodian Data Centres and, not for the first time, we're proud to be working with them.

As they say:

https://www.custodiandc.com/about-us/sustainability/

"Since our inception Custodian has only ever used 100% renewable energy.

"We take an active role in supporting this initiative to help improve a range of standards in how Data Centres operate, with a view to hitting carbon-neutral status by 2030.

"Our latest facilities leverage the latest in Ultra Free Air cooling to maximise efficiency and sustainability. Enabling us to use less water & energy to cool our data floors."

Nice.

Custodian are our main data centre hosts, and beyond that our Sandgate office is 100% powered by renewable energy, with no gas. We recycle the majority of our limited office waste. Our MC commutes to work on foot (OK, he lives upstairs, he literally has no choice).

We can do more. We can always do more. But it's a good starting point.

Sustainability is a core focus for us. From our commitment to Green energy and renewables to looking to the future. We are part of a greener future.

19/09/2026

Listening to a round table on "Bridging the Digital Divide & Reconnecting Britain" with MPs Victoria Collins and Helen Morgan.

Clearly an important topic for online service users, and indeed those that develop for them. And essentially our digital infrastructure is not providing the capability we need. Interesting example from Cornwall Council putting signal testers on bin lorries to map "not spots" across the county to share that with residents and lobby providers.

19/09/2026

Welcome to Lib Dem conference - we're here to talk to you!

We're stand 1 in the exhibition (ok - upstairs exhibition) and happy to talk about the many ways we support every element of the Lib Dems, from Lighthouse to Fleet to the Lib Dem Draw!

We're also going to much of the tech training around conference this year, from Data Protection to Selections and campaigning online to win - all things we already work with the party in in various ways.

10/09/2026

This may well sound a bit needy, but that's us!

If you are one of our customers, either directly, or through one of our services such as Fleet or Lighthouse, we'd love to hear from you.

If you love what we're doing, leaving a short review saying so at would be a really kind way of spending a couple of minutes. https://g.page/r/CRcsfOBhTATPEAE/review

If you've got feedback on how we could help you better, we'd also love to hear from you too! Drop us a line at [email protected] or to your usual contact https://praterraines.co.uk/contact

Either way - thank you!

27/08/2026

We just thought this post needed a plug...

Happy to help!

Wow, Sandgate, 43kg of electricals in 3 days!

We’ve just collected the contents of our brand‑new Pink Electrical Recycling Bin at Prater Raines… and after only 3 days, it was already FULL with a whopping 43kg of electricals!

Huge thanks to Tim Prater for hosting this bin, and a massive thank you to everyone in Sandgate for your incredible support.

📍 The bin is outside Prater Raines, 9–5 Monday to Friday
🔌 Anything with a plug or battery can be recycled
❗ No light bulbs or vapes, please, and items must fit in the bin

Let’s keep the pink bin buzzing!

27/08/2026

The glamour of sysadmin life: a coffee (and chip) break on a visit to CustodianDC's' Maidstone data centre having successfully dealt with a server cache issue on one of our mailservers.

Needed to wait 15 minutes before running final checks (honest!), but all good, mission totally successful, coffee nearly finished and soon heading back to Sandgate!

18/08/2026

A little bit of site tidying and optimisation, and we are now one of the four Google AI answers if you look for "TYPO3 websites UK" (with one of those being website hosting rather than developers, but we're not complaining, and also hello to the rest of the UK TYPO3 community!).

TYPO3 is great for secure, enterprise (multi-headed) websites and also multi-lingual sites - literally built for it. If these are things your organisation needs, we'd be happy to talk.

https://praterraines.co.uk/typo3-cms