Queenstown Lakes District Council and Arrowtown-based consultancy firm, Rationale, have received a prestigious industry Award for Excellence from IPWEA New Zealand.

At the 13th Excellence Awards hosted by the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, QLDC and Rationale were presented with the award for Excellence in Strategic Planning. They received the award jointly for their work on the development of the Queenstown Town Centre Masterplan.

QLDC General Manager Property & Infrastructure, Peter Hansby said the combined teams truly deserved the judges’ recognition as an “impressive process with extensive stakeholder engagement.”

“The Masterplan was built on partnerships with agencies, stakeholders and the community. QLDC and Rationale worked collaboratively to bring together a highly capable team of stakeholders and service providers to analyse, understand and work together with the community to address the Town Centre’s challenges,” said Mr Hansby.

Community involvement has been an integral part of developing the Queenstown Town Centre Masterplan. The project team were determined to engage early and often to help shape and refine the Masterplan. This has been a huge factor in the programme gaining such strong support.

Rationale Managing Director, Edward Guy was delighted to see the hard work done by both QLDC and Rationale acknowledged with this award. “The development of the Masterplan has been a huge piece of work with significant implications for the future of Queenstown. We’re very proud of the work we’ve done to support and partner with QLDC and it’s great to see the project team come away with this award,” said Mr Guy.

QLDC Mayor Jim Boult said the award reflected the commitment in the district to making Queenstown a great place to live and work. “This is a significant programme of work that is a big part of this Council’s bold Ten Year Plan. Industry recognition such as this demonstrates how hard the team has worked to get this right for our community. I would like to personally offer my thanks and congratulations to the QLDC and Rationale project teams,” said Mayor Boult.

Entries into the Excellence in Strategic Planning category had to demonstrate excellence in providing clear strategic direction in the progression of public works. Strategies could be in any area related to public works, including infrastructure strategies, asset management and the development of capital works projects.

The 13th IPWEA NZ Excellence Awards were presented on 22 June 2018, the final evening of the IPWEA NZ Conference in Rotorua.

ENDS

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