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Seven consultants win spots on Southern Water’s £240m framework

Southern Water has announced its professional services framework partners.

In total seven consultants have won places on the framework worth a combined £240 million.

The winning consultants include Aecom, Arup, KPMG, Mott MacDonald, Stantec, Turner & Townsend and a joint venture between WSP and Binnies.

The framework will run throughout the next asset management period from 2025 to 2030.

It is designed to provide Southern Water access a wide range of technical advisory services in support of building and engineering projects which form part of its proposed £7.8 billion PR24 business plan.

The framework, which runs for an initial five years with the option to extend by another three years, is broken down into three lots:

  • Asset management support services
  • Programme and project management support services
  • Technical and engineering support services

Southern Water head of procurement Stephen Coleman said: “I am delighted to announce these seven Professional Services partners who I am confident will be of huge support to Southern Water as we embark on an absolutely crucial time of positive change for the UK water sector.”

He added: “From identifying and designing new nature-based solutions to improve water quality, reduce storm overflows and boost biodiversity, to spearheading best practices in hydraulic modelling, water recycling and digital innovation, projects within this framework will help future-proof our network and enhance our communities across the region.”

If its PR24 business plan is approved by Ofwat, Southern will invest £682 million to reduce the use of storm overflows by 40% by 2030 at 179 priority locations.

It plans to cut overall pollution incidents by half and eliminate serious events by installing new mains and increasing power resilience at pumping stations as well as adding monitoring across wastewater networks.

The plan specifies spending £600 million on upgrading 38 sewage works to meet statutory nutrient requirements.

On the supply side, investment will be directed at lowering abstraction by 10%; modernising four treatment works that serve two-thirds of the customer base; delivering 189 megalitres of additional resource capacity by 2035 with new recycling plants and pipelines; rolling out more than one million smart water meters as part of the Target 100 programme; and lowering leakage rates from 17% to 13% by 2030 with an investment of £517 million during AMP8.

Ofwat was due to reveal its draft determinations on water company business plans this month, but that has been delayed until after the general election to comply with pre-election period rules.