Andrew McKenna leads Accura Consulting’s delay team and is a construction delay expert who works on New South Wales disputes from Accura's Sydney office at Martin Place.
Construction Delay Expert in Sydney
Andrew spent years as a site engineer, site manager and planning manager before becoming an expert, so his delay analysis starts from how the job was actually built.
Experience Relevant to NSW
Andrew has been engaged as a delay expert on 17 construction and infrastructure disputes across Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and the UK, including arbitrations on tunnelling and renewable energy projects. His project delivery work includes the Albury Wodonga Cancer Centre on the NSW/Victoria border, and major rail work where shutdowns and possessions are planned to the hour, as they are on Sydney's metro and rail programmes.
Construction Delay in Sydney
Victorian courts, tribunals and laws
Andrew prepares delay evidence for disputes heard in:
Supreme Court of New South Wales, including the Technology and Construction List, for major project disputes
NCAT, for residential building disputes under the Home Building Act 1989 (NSW)
Adjudication under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW), where delay arguments must be made clearly on the papers within days
Arbitration and expert determination under the dispute clauses of NSW infrastructure contracts
Each forum asks for something different, and Andrew shapes the analysis to fit the forum from the start.
What NSW courts have said about delay
White Constructions v PBS Holdings [2019] NSWSC 1166
A 100-lot subdivision on the NSW south coast finished about 7.5 months late after a sewerage design was not approved. The developer claimed about $1.93 million in delay damages. Both sides called programming experts, one using an as-planned versus as-built windows analysis and the other a collapsed as-built analysis. Justice Hammerschlag accepted neither, finding the claimant's evidence assumed causation rather than identifying actual evidence of it, and the claim failed. Andrew's view: a method listed in the SCL Protocol is not proof. The analysis has to show, from the site records, which activities the event actually held up.
The lesson for NSW claims
Site diaries that record a problem but not the activities it affected are not enough. Contractors need records that link each event to the specific work it delayed, and experts need to build their analysis from those records.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Accura Consulting is based in Melbourne with a Sydney office at Martin Place. Andrew McKenna and the leadership team travel regularly for site visits, expert conferences and hearings.
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Yes. Andrew prepares delay analysis for adjudications under security of payment legislation. Call early, because adjudication timeframes are short and the delay analysis must be ready when the application or response is lodged.
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It means a recognised delay method is not enough on its own. The court wants evidence that each delaying event actually affected the work, so the analysis must be tied to contemporaneous site records.
Insights
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