The Opportunity
SA Water provides safe and affordable water services to South Australians.
The majority of Adelaide’s water resources are located in the southern suburbs, with limited capacity to transfer this to the northern suburbs. SA Water needed to develop an integrated solution that would allow them to transfer and distribute this water to the northern suburbs and rest of Adelaide.
And so, the North South Interconnection System Project (NSISP) was born, which proved to be the most significant augmentation and enhancement of Adelaide’s water supply system ever undertaken.
communikate et al was appointed to develop a stakeholder engagement program that included: corporate communications, business support marketing and implementation, event management and photography.
Our Approach
We worked with the SA Water team to develop and support a community consultation campaign that would engage all communities traversed by the new interconnector pipeline. The campaign ensured:
- Community input was factored into key project decision making.
- Education was provided about the necessity for NSISP.
- Expectations, issues and impacts of the project were managed.
- A positive legacy was left for communities across Adelaide.
We began by:
- conducting background research into the business and community profiles
- visiting sites to review traffic (vehicle and pedestrian) and community facilities.
This allowed us to gain an understanding of community expectations and issues so a strategy could be developed to keep the community informed about the progress of NSISP, clearly identify where information was located, and initiatives to support local communities and businesses during this time.
Within the package of business support work, we conducted brand revitalisation, advertising and promotion for two significant shopping centres and one shopping precinct located along the pipeline alignments to support customer traffic and visitation, alongside the communication of project information.
The Outcome
This integrated approach allowed us to successfully engage the community, ensuring the key performance indicators, such as: value for money, proven return on investment, quick and effective results, community and stakeholder satisfaction, exceptional service delivery and reputation management for SA Water were met.
The project garnered an impressive 8 industry awards recognising excellence in community relations, project management, engineering, infrastructure and urban renewal.
