We take public utility plant off the critical path. We run the investigation, negotiate with the asset owners, manage the relocation design through approval, and inspect the works until the asset owner accepts them back. We do not dig. We run the process that gets it done.
Bring us in at concept, not when the excavator hits something. Authority approval cycles do not compress because a contractor is behind.
Under the Transport Infrastructure Act 1994, public utility plant is plant permitted under another Act to be on a road: the water, sewer, gas, electricity and telecommunications assets already sitting in the corridor. When a road, busway, rail or streetscape project needs that ground, the plant has to move, be protected in place, or be abandoned.
The pipe can be moved. What holds projects up is the approval cycle behind it: scoping, quoting, deeds, design endorsement and outage windows, each owned by a different authority with its own timeframe.
A carrier under the Telecommunications Act works nothing like a distributor under the Electricity Act, which works nothing like a water service provider under the Planning Act. One project, four or five separate legal pathways.
A relocation identified at concept is a line item. The same relocation discovered during construction is a claim, a variation, a stood-down crew and a cutover window pushed into storm season.
PUP Relocation Group is a principal-side coordination and inspection service. Most projects buy investigation, authority coordination and construction supervision from three different suppliers and spend the programme reconciling them. We hold the process end to end, so what gets located is what gets designed, and what gets designed is what gets built and accepted.
Find out what is actually down there, to a defensible standard, before anyone designs around it.
Own the authority relationships so the project team does not have to.
The relocation works supervised from IFC to acceptance, on the principal's side of the table.
What we deliberately do not do. We do not excavate, bore, lay conduit or connect services. The physical works are done by the asset owner's contractor or the project's head contractor, to the asset owner's standard. Staying independent of the construction is what lets us represent the principal and tell you plainly when a programme, a quotation or a design is not going to land.
Nobody in this industry publishes this, which is exactly why clients are surprised by it. Durations below are indicative and vary by asset owner, scope and season, but they are the shape of the thing.
Every affected asset owner identified, plans retrieved and reconciled against as-builts and the project's survey. This is QL-D, records only. We treat it as a hypothesis, not an answer.
Electromagnetic and GPR sweep of the corridor by a specialist locator, surveyed and quality-coded. This is where records and reality part company, and where most of the project's future variations are already sitting.
Located services overlaid against the civil, structural and drainage design. Each conflict classified: relocate, protect in place, or no action. Nothing goes to an authority until this is settled.
Non-destructive excavation at every clash point, exposed and surveyed. Only QL-A validates a service. Designing a relocation off QL-B at a critical clash is how projects end up back here anyway, three months later.
Relocation versus protection assessed on cost, programme and outage risk. Budget estimates prepared before the number is locked, not after.
Formal approach to each asset owner. Scope agreed, quotation requested, cost apportionment argued. This is the long pole, it runs at the authority's pace, and it is the single best reason to start early.
Relocation deeds, third party agreements and indemnities negotiated and signed. Runs in parallel with design where the authority allows it.
Concept through detailed design, coordinated against the project documentation and taken through the authority's review and endorsement. Certified where the authority requires RPEQ sign-off.
Road corridor permits, traffic control permits, permission to enter for private property, body corporate notice, environmental approvals. Lodged in parallel, not in series.
The physical relocation is built by the asset owner's contractor or the head contractor, to the asset owner's specification and under the project's HSE requirements. We inspect it: hold points witnessed, protection works checked, and anything the asset owner will reject at handover picked up while the trench is still open.
Shutdown or cutover coordinated between the asset owner and the contractor inside the approved window, with customer notification and contingency. Miss the window and the next one may be a month or a season away.
Survey, as-constructed drawings, ADAC asset data and completion documentation packaged to the authority's requirements. The job is not finished until the asset owner has accepted the asset back.
A relocation only works when both are satisfied. We work the same job from both sides of the table.
Councils, TMR, alliances and Tier 1 delivery teams. Your exposure is programme and cost, and utilities are the item most likely to blow both.
Energex and Ergon, Unitywater and Urban Utilities, Telstra, Optus, NBN Co, APA. Your exposure is asset integrity, standards compliance and the paperwork holding it together.
PUP Relocation Group is a new company. The people in it are not. Our director has run the utilities interface on live Queensland streetscape and transport corridor projects, on the client side of the table with the asset owners.
Sunshine Coast Council · Maroochydore, QLD
A major CBD streetscape upgrade through a fully serviced corridor. Utility relocation sat on the critical path from the outset: a Telstra conduit lift gating a 900mm stormwater run, which in turn gated the Energex road crossings and the Stage 2 works window. Our director ran the utilities interface, coordinating every asset owner, chasing the approvals, and keeping the relocation sequence honest against a zero-float programme.
Sunshine Coast Council · Caloundra, QLD
A multi-package transport corridor upgrade through an established, fully serviced urban corridor, delivered under a head contractor. Relocations span Energex transmission and distribution network assets alongside Unitywater water and sewer mains, each designed and endorsed by the asset owner ahead of construction. The utilities interface here is the principal-side one: keeping the customer and principal activities moving so the contractor is never waiting on an approval, and coordinating the live cutovers and outages that only the asset owners can perform.
Project experience described here was gained by our director on the projects named. Client references are available on request.
If a contractor cannot name these, they have not done a relocation on a Queensland state-controlled road.
MRTS171 · July 2025
Requires a Utility Asset Coordination Representative with a minimum five years' relocation experience, and a Utility Relocation Management Plan within 28 days of tender acceptance.
MRTS170 · July 2025
Installation and protection of public utility plant within the state-controlled road corridor, including busways and cycle lanes. Sets the vibration and protection requirements near live plant.
AS 5488.1:2022 & AS 5488.2:2022
The quality level framework, QL-D through QL-A. Only QL-A, physically exposed and surveyed, validates a subsurface utility. We quality-code every deliverable.
Transport Infrastructure Act 1994 (Qld)
The statutory power to require a utility owner to relocate plant, with s.83 allowing the chief executive and the owner to share the cost by agreement. This is what creates the work.
Electricity Act 1994 (Qld)
s.106 lets a public entity require an electricity entity to alter the position of its works. s.99 is the notice obligation on anyone working near them.
Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth)
Why carriers are handled differently from state utilities, and why relocation of a carrier asset is at the requesting party's expense.
BYDA
The national referral service, formerly Dial Before You Dig. Plans are indicative only and carry an expiry. The duty of care stays with the excavator, which is why we insist on potholing.
QDC MP1.4
The instrument that governs water and sewer build-over and adjacency in Queensland, referred through Unitywater and Urban Utilities.
It depends on the asset and the tenure. For telecommunications carriers, the position is settled: the requesting party pays, under the Telecommunications Act 1997. For plant on a state-controlled road, s.79 of the Transport Infrastructure Act directs the owner to carry out the work, and s.83 lets the chief executive and the owner share the cost by agreement, so it is negotiated. For water and sewer, relocations generally run through connections and development agreements and are requestor-funded.
The rule of thumb: the party whose works make the relocation necessary usually bears the cost, subject to the statutory cost-sharing provisions and whatever tenure the utility holds. The negotiation is where the money is, and it is worth having someone in it who has done it before.
Concept design. The authority approval cycle in stage 6 of our process runs four to twelve weeks and does not compress. If a relocation is identified during construction, that entire clock starts from zero while a crew stands around.
The cheapest utility work on any project is the QL-B survey nobody wanted to pay for at concept.
Because they are indicative only, they carry an expiry date, and the duty of care stays with the excavator regardless. BYDA is a referral service. It holds no asset data itself, it passes your enquiry to the member asset owners, and non-member and private assets do not appear at all.
BYDA plans are QL-D under AS 5488. They are the right starting point and the wrong basis for a design.
QL-B is geophysical: electromagnetic locating and GPR, surveyed, to a stated horizontal tolerance. It tells you where things approximately are, across the whole corridor. QL-A is physical: the service is exposed by non-destructive excavation and surveyed, and it is the only quality level that validates a utility.
You need both, in that order. QL-B across the corridor to find the conflicts, then QL-A at each conflict before you design a relocation around it.
No, and that is deliberate. The excavation, boring and pipework is done by the asset owner's contractor or the project's head contractor, to the asset owner's standard. What we hold is everything around it: the investigation, the approvals, the design coordination, the inspection and the handover.
Keeping us independent of the construction is what lets us sit on the principal's side of the table and tell you when a programme is not going to hold.
Based on the Sunshine Coast and working Queensland-wide. Our recent project experience is concentrated in South East Queensland: Sunshine Coast, Moreton Bay and Brisbane.
Where the project is, who the asset owners are, and when you need the ground clear. We will tell you what is realistic, including when it is not.