Lina Nieto Pacheco is an Associate Director at WSP within the Water Advisory team, specialising in water resilience, strategy, infrastructure planning and regulation. She brings a decade of experience advising utilities, developers and government bodies across the UK and internationally, with her work sitting at the intersection of policy, planning and delivery. Lina focuses on how regulatory frameworks, infrastructure constraints and governance structures shape sustainable growth and long-term water resilience.

 She has led and delivered complex, multidisciplinary programmes addressing water regulatory constraints and opportunities, environmental impact assessment and development planning. Her experience includes water neutrality strategies, Water Cycle Studies and the resolution of planning and environmental conditions, supporting major schemes across healthcare, aviation and large-scale mixed-use developments. Alongside this, she has advised regulators and government on the design of emerging policy mechanisms, including market-based approaches such as water credit systems.

 Lina’s experience combines strategic policy insight with hands-on delivery across the sector. Earlier in her career at Affinity Water, she led a £4 million innovation programme and supported capital delivery and regulatory planning across major infrastructure schemes.

More recently, she has been at the forefront of advising on water resilience, demand management and regulatory risk for critical national infrastructure, industrial clients and the healthcare sector, including large commercial developments. She has also played a key role in international programmes, providing strategic advisory and feasibility input, as well as contributing to due diligence assignments assessing environmental compliance, asset performance and investment requirements within regulated utility environments.

 Lina is particularly interested in how environmental ambitions, planning processes and water availability are increasingly acting as both enablers and constraints on economic growth in the UK. She brings a pragmatic, systems-level perspective grounded in both technical expertise and real-world delivery.