Outgoing Manx Gas MD confident about natural gas conversion

The outgoing managing director of Manx Gas says the company is well prepared to meet the challenge of converting much of the Island to natural gas.

Alan Bates stepped down from the post yesterday and is leaving the Island for Guernsey.

He's swapping utilities - and has been appointed MD of Guernsey Electricity.

Six-and-a-half-thousand homes in the north, south and west of the Island will be converted to natural gas in 2012, in a scheme costing around £28 million - subject to Tynwald approval.

Mr Bates' first job when he arrived here five years ago, was to address serious problems which plagued the conversion of Douglas and the east of the Island.

But he says much work has been done to ensure that doesn't happen again: