Municipalities in Southcentral Manitoba continue to work at getting natural gas into the region.

The Growth and Prosperity Stakeholders group is made up of several municipalities that want to improve services in their region.

Doug Collins of Pilot Mound is the Chair and he says they’ve been working at this for five years and they feel like they are making some progress.

“We are a group of municipalities like Thompson, Lorne, Victoria, Glenboro South Cypress, Treherne Norfolk and Louise which is basically the middle part of the province. There’s natural gas service all around us but not in our region.”

The group realizes natural gas will enhance their communities and make it economically better for both businesses and homeowners while maintaining what they do have in those municipalities.

“We’re in the process of setting up a meeting with the Public Utilities Board in regards to our project and we hope to have that meeting in March to see how we can deal with the next steps but a firm date hasn’t been established.”

Once funding is in place the group goes through the public hearing process within the municipalities as well as going through an environmental assessment.

“We are thinking by the time the assessments happen it could be late 2021 before things happen but it’s hard to say right now or determine a definite date. Every house will have the opportunity to hook up at a set cost and then there will be a 20-year debenture.”