Our Brief

To provide and implement a Community and Stakeholder Management Plan for large-scale water pipeline infrastructure projects, from the planning and application stage through to construction.

Our Approach

The three projects covered an area of around 200km, multiple councils, varying terrain and engaged over 20,000 stakeholders. All of the projects generated considerable interest from media, members of the community, stakeholders, State and Local Government and interest groups.

Project messages needed to balance the needs of both the Alliance and the client. To secure project credibility, it was vital that all external project messages delivered by the Community and Stakeholder team were done so in a transparent manner that also provided a realistic representation of the project scope.

To ensure the project was delivered on time and executed in a timely and effective manner, the following was required:

• active engagement with community members, stakeholders and directly affected landholders;
• comprehensive issues management with the Government, client, media and landholders;
• a comprehensive stakeholder engagement and media strategy that could change and adapt; and
• effective processes and procedures.

The Outcome

Overall Key Performance Indicator research for community acceptance of the projects was above 80 percent, demonstrating that the community relations teams, with the assistance of all teams working in these areas, were successful in maintaining a positive reputation for all three projects, despite significant expected and unexpected construction impacts. The Government was also consistently monitored and a high level of satisfaction was achieved for Community Engagement activities relating to the projects.