ACTING Premier Peter Ryan visited Huntly yesterday to inspect progress on a $4.5 million project connecting Huntly to Victoria’s natural gas network.
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Significant work has been done on the project that seeks to connect more than 580 households and businesses to reticulated natural gas as part of the Victorian Government’s $100 million Energy for the Regions Program.
Mr Ryan said the Huntly project would be among the first completed under the program.
“Huntly residents will soon have access to cheaper and cleaner energy,” Mr Ryan said.
“Cheaper energy makes life easier for everyday people and makes Huntly a more attractive place to run a business.”
Gas network owner SP AusNet has installed more than 3.8 kilometres of supply main down the Midland Highway and is beginning work on 13 kilometres of reticulation pipeline to supply homes and businesses throughout Huntly with natural gas.
Mr Ryan was joined in Huntly by SP AusNet’s general manager of asset
management, Alistair Parker, who said the company was committed to delivering the underground gas network on time, safely and with minimal disruption to locals.
Mr Ryan also met with Huntly residents who will be among the first connected to natural gas.
Huntly homeowners Dale and Jan Johnson were relishing the thought of getting a gas heater, gas hot water and gas stove.
“It’s a great thing…We are really happy,” Mrs Johnson said.
“We’ve been nagging politicians for years, and finally it’s here."
She and her husband had been using an electric stove, electric hot water and wood space heater.
The wood stove was a lot of effort, she said – too small to heat the house and too hard for Mr Johnson, at 76, to chop wood.
SP AusNet has extended its natural gas network in western Victoria to more than 92,000 homes and businesses and plans to have the gas pipes ready for Huntly residents and businesses to connect by mid-2014.