10 July 2019 – In what is a game changer for the water utilities sector, Aurecon and Arup have been appointed Sydney Water’s Planning Partner for the next 10 years.

While it is an emerging trend for water utilities to enter into sole partnership with consultants for planning and design services, this is believed to be the largest consultant engagement in Australia by a water utility.

Global engineering, design, and advisory company Aurecon’s Head of Water Kevin Werksman said the Aurecon/Arup team would provide a fresh approach to water management with an increasing focus on delivering services with a fully integrated approach.

“Water utilities are increasingly seeing the benefits of the partnership model as being able to much better leverage value from businesses like ours in a collaborative, non-transactional environment,” he said.

“As well as additional technical engineering smarts, Aurecon and Arup will provide additional advisory services such as asset management and community consultation."

The Aurecon/Arup team will also support Sydney Water in technical advisory and project engineering roles to see its $600 million per year capital program through to successful completion.

Sydney Water is Australia’s largest water utility, covering water, wastewater and recycled water services across Greater Sydney.

Daniel Lambert, Arup’s Australasia Water Leader, said Aurecon and Arup bring complementary skills and deep experience to the integrated team.

“Our joint team will provide support in strategic advisory roles, systems services planning and integrated water management, and take planning through to concept design and project engineering to facilitate smooth handover to contractor teams,” Mr Lambert said.

The two firms will have a large team co-located at Sydney Water’s Parramatta offices, as well as teams at Aurecon’s Sydney Neutral Bay office and Arup’s Sydney CBD office.