Scottish Water is to adopt an award-winning model for partnership working to deliver billions of pounds worth of capital investment.
Its £500 million Improving Urban Waters programme has been named ‘Partnership of the Year’ at the Water Industry Awards for its innovative and integrated approach.
Now, the publicly owned utility is set to use the same model to deliver up to £9 billion of investment to transform Scotland’s public assets to keep taps flowing and protect the environment.
Scottish Water Alliance Manager Lynsey Lennon said:
“Our Improving Urban Waters programme committed us to delivering over 100 projects in less than five years.
“We decided to take a combined approach, bringing together our team members with our alliance partner, modellers, designers and survey partners into one integrated team.
“The result is we are getting projects to site in a third of the time that it took in the past, and that achievement has been recognised.”
Scottish Water is carrying out its largest ever procurement process, inviting firms to bid to be involved in an enterprise-style programme – known as Delivery Vehicle 4 – between 2027 and 2033 and potentially for a further six years.
It is anticipated the total investment – known as SR27 - of between £5 billion and £9 billion will support around 4000 jobs and create opportunities for 1500 young people.
Lynsey Lennon added:
“These are exciting times for Scottish Water and our partners and a real opportunity to bring great value for customers as we invest their money in our futures.
“Innovation is key, not only in the technologies and materials we use, but in our approach to how we bring together the expertise, know-how and processes to deliver real benefits.
“We had already started to apply elements of our experience with the Improving Urban Waters model to other programmes of work, and we will see much more of this way of working in the next investment period.”
Scottish Water’s Improving Urban Waters team includes Caledonia Water Alliance, modellers and designers at M2 and ARC and survey partner Clancy.
Welsh Water’s new artificial intelligence-driven tool, ORAI, has been shortlisted for three categories at the prestigious British Data Awards 2026 – underscoring the company’s commitment to using cutting-edge technology to deliver better outcome for customers.
Barhale has completed work on two separate Rapid Action Taskforce Spills projects it is carrying out for Severn Trent.
Börger UK, which has firmly established itself as a leading pump brand since it was set up in Staffordshire in 2004, has moved into bigger, brand-new premises in Shrewsbury.
HUBER Technology UK & Ireland are inviting people to register for their March webinar where they will be providing information about HUBER water intake screens for municipal and industrial applications.
Hear how Scottish Water has completed its £235 million Ayrshire Glasgow Resilience Project - customers across Greater Glasgow, Ayrshire and East Renfrewshire will now benefit from a more secure and resilient water supply.
Hear how United Utilities is accelerating its investment to reduce spills from storm overflows across the Northwest.
Find out more about the remarkable career opportunities on offer at WSP - scroll down to watch the inspirational video.