Jersey gas outage causes island-wide shutdown

A power failure at the Island Energy plant at La Collette

People in Jersey will be without gas all weekend after a shutdown of the island's supply.

Island Energy shut its gas network earlier for residential and commercial customers across the island after a loss of power at its La Collette plant.

It said it was unable to restore supplies before Monday.

The firm advised people to turn off any gas appliances and, if possible, to turn off the supply at the meter.

It said it would be visiting customer's homes to help turn off meters.

It told customers: "We understand that this is a massive disruption to you, however, reinstating of any gas supply must be done in a staged manner and we must ensure the reinstatement of services is strictly followed."

Earlier, it said it could not easily restore supply and normal service was expected to take "some time" to resume.

It said it had "isolated" the problem at the plant.

Islanders were advised to:

• Turn off any gas appliances in use

• Turn off the gas supply at the meter using the emergency control valve where possible

• Avoid trying to use any gas appliances or turn on the supply until it has been checked by Island Energy

Islanders have reported significant disruption as a result of the outage.

Matt Jones, from the Moorings Hotel in Gorey, said his business was "completely reliant" on gas.

"As a result we are finding it pretty difficult to run operations," he said.

"Unfortunately, we have a limited menu - we can mainly only do cold foods. We're obviously losing custom because of it.

"Some people are going home or going away because we're not offering our full menu."

Dominic Jones, chief executive of restaurant group JPRestauraunts, said on X, formerly Twitter that the shutdown would be a "significant issue" for the sector if it wasn't addressed.

People on social media also criticised Island Energy for its communication during the outage.

One wrote on Facebook: "It can't be too hard to provide businesses with a realistic idea of when it'll be back up and running or if longer term do we need a plan B."

Another customer said: "You cannot expect us families to be without hot water and cooking facilities for a long period of time."