The Manx government is cracking down further on what were once called ‘legal highs’.

The Treasury has made a legal order banning the import, export, production and possession with intent to supply of psychoactive substances – including the former so-called ‘legal highs’ – that are now subject to a blanket prohibition in the UK.

The Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 (Application) Order 2016 will come into effect on August 18.

Treasury Minister Eddie Teare MHK said: ‘Treasury has made this order to protect the community from the importation of harmful substances, and to prevent the Isle of Man from being used as a conduit to circumvent the prohibitions in force in the UK.’

The order prohibits the import into, and export from, the island of psychoactive substances that have been prohibited in the UK under the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016.

It also prohibits the production of a psychoactive substance, for example its manufacture or cultivation, possession with intent to supply and removals of psychoactive substances to and from the UK.

The order provides powers for police and customs officers to enforce the prohibitions, and for offences and penalties for contravening them.

The penalties include a maximum sentence of up to seven years’ custody on conviction for an offence of intentionally importing or exporting a psychoactive substance (or a substance that he or she knows or suspects is a psychoactive substance) which he or she knows is for human consumption, or is reckless as to whether or not it is to be consumed by some other person for its psychoactive effect.

A copy of the order is available on the Customs and Excise website for information.

Click here

The government is looking for ideas about how to grow the workforce.

The island, like much of the western world, has and ageing population, which means that as more and more people draw their pensions, the need to find younger people to work will grow.

The Department of Economic Development has issued a consultation paper on a range of proposals to grow the island’s workforce.

The ‘Proposals to Accelerate Economic Growth’ consultation is open until Friday, September 30, and offers people the chance to submit their views and suggestions on the department’s plans for economic growth.

Laurence Skelly MHK, Minister for the Department of Economic Development, said: ‘Thanks to the island’s longstanding policy of economic diversification, unemployment has been steadily falling and is now at its lowest level in eight years.

‘While this is good news for workers, local businesses are struggling to find the skilled workers necessary to grow and therefore create more jobs and taxes for the island. To this end the Isle of Man needs to increase its workforce, either through increasing the participation of residents or by attracting new workers to the Isle of Man.

‘The department has a series of ideas to help drive this growth. This consultation gives the general public the opportunity to comment first-hand on the proposed initiatives for growth as well as suggest their own ideas. The proposals should also help the new Administration make quick and effective decisions with the backing of the local population.’

The consultation outlines five headline proposals to grow the active working population on the Isle of Man, including plans to encourage Manx graduates to return, boost earnings for lower paid workers and help qualified workers re-join the workforce.

The department says it is keen to hear from any members of the public, businesses and other stakeholders who may have comments on the proposals or suggestions on additional measures the Department might take to grow the economically active population of the Island.

Visit here to find out more about the proposals and submit comments.

Friends, family and the postman all ensured that Rene McKevitt’s 100th birthday was a day to remember.

Rene, who has lived in Glen Road, Laxey, since 1974, was visited by four generations of her family on the big day, including her son Paul, second cousin Keith Moffatt, granddaughter Louise Ashton and great grandson Dylan Smith.

And it was the postman who proudly presented Rene with a birthday card from the Queen. She also received a visit from Tynwald president Steve Rodan.

Rene’s son Paul, who travelled to the island from Liverpool for the celebration, said: ‘She had a good day and thoroughly enjoyed herself.’

Youngsters are being advised to act now to ensure they can vote in September 22’s general election.

Those who turn 16 before the House of Keys General Election on September 22, and are included in a household voter registration form returned by September 1, will be able to vote.

The Isle of Man was one of the first nations in the world to give 16-year-olds the vote in 2006.

Click here for more information or email: voters@gov.im or telephone: 685754.

Residents who have moved home and have not yet registered to vote at their new address have until September 1 to do so in order to be able to take part in the election.

Using the Isle of Man Government Change of Address Service allows multiple government agencies, including the Electoral Registration Office, to be notified of your new address.

The service, which can be accessed at www.gov.im/updateaddress, issues a household registration form for completion and return.

Cakes, jams, plants and crafts are just some of the attractions set to be on display at the Michael Horticulture and Produce Show on Thursday.

The popular event will be held between 2pm and 6.30pm in the sports hall at Michael School.

Entries are invited in a range of categories, including honey, children’s painting, confectionery, flowers and vegetables, and more.

Presentations at 7.30pm will be followed by an auction of produce in aid of the IoM Bowel Cancer Society and Michael School.

For more information, contact David and Janet Foss on 878602.

Manx Blind Welfare Society will be visiting schools, businesses and other organisations to explain and help raise awareness of visual impairment and blindness.

The society will be holding a series of events during Vision Awareness Week, which will take place from September 12 to 18.

The week aims to promote good eye health, explain the services and support available to blind and visually impaired people in the island, and highlight what the community can do to ensure everyone has the opportunity and independence to live their life as they choose.

Staff and volunteers from the society will be giving talks around the island and offering training on how to assist visually impaired people.

This year’s Vision Awareness Week, which is the third to be held, will begin with an open day at the charity’s headquarters Corrin Court, in Onchan, on September 12 so people can find out more about the society’s work. Other events include Bright for Sight Day and the Walk My Way guided walk.

Manx Blind Welfare Society volunteer coordinator and events organiser Debbie Thomson said: ‘Throughout the year the society provides free training to any organisation which would like its staff or members to be better prepared to interact with visually impaired people and is happy to give talks about our work.

‘During Vision Awareness Week we want to encourage more schools, businesses and other organisations to take advantage of the free training and talks.

‘One of the aims of the week is to raise awareness of the challenges faced by visually impaired people as well as what can be achieved by blind people when barriers to learning, work and social environments are removed. We want to spread these messages throughout the island by visiting as many organisations as we can to give talks and training.

‘Another aim of Vision Awareness Week is to promote good eye health, and we will be focusing on that in our talks. We want more people to understand that regular eye checks are essential, as some conditions which can cause sight loss can be managed if detected and treated early enough, and the fact that a healthy lifestyle and diet can help preserve eye health.’

For more information about events during the week or if you would like the society to talk at your organisation call 674727 or email enquiries@mbws.org.im

Meet Liberal Vannin’s candidates in the forthcoming general election at a meeting in Douglas tomorrow (Wednesday) night.

The event will take place at the Old Friends’ Club in Finch Road at 7.30pm.

Kate Beecroft (Douglas South), Lawrie Hooper (Ramsey) and Pat Ayres (Ayre & Michael) will all be present to answer questions.

A new combined housing waiting list for the south of the island to be launched in September promises to allocate housing more quickly and efficiently.

The list combines the names of those waiting for local authority housing in Arbory, Castletown, Malew, Port Erin, Rushen and Santon.

This covers the whole of the south except for Port St Mary, which declined to be part of the initiative.

Working with the Department of Infrastructure’s housing division, the list uses cloud-based technology provided by government’s technology services; the new combined list will replace the individual housing waiting lists previously administered by local authorities.

Combining the list means prospective tenants will have a much wider choice of location and access to over 1,000 properties.

This means those in urgent need of housing can be accommodated for more quickly.

However the list also caters for those who wish to live in a particular area; they have the option to apply for that area alone.

The list has emerged from meetings of the Southern Area Housing Group, which formed in November last year, The group has also developed a standardised application and allocation procedure to speed up the process.

In February Port St Mary explained its reasons for not joining the list.

The authority said it was ‘not in the best interests of our ratepayers, tenants or community.’

They said the current system, using local knowledge, works efficiently. There is 100 per cent occupancy and a void period of 2,2 weeks. The system is not in need of reform. It would only add another layer of bureaucracy. Finally, Port St Mary people want to live in Port St Mary and not Colby, Malew or Ronague!

Thomas Bostock and William Draper won the under-16 male Madison title at British Cycling’s Youth and Junior National Track Championships last week.

The Team RL360 pair won the final sprint of the 40-lap race at the Derby Arena on Thursday afternoon to clinch the title somewhat against the odds.

It was the first time that the pair, normally arch-rivals, had contested a proper Madison. They had prevously only had a one-hour coaching session for the discipline on a trip to the UK earlier this year.

The two young Manxmen had shown their potential in the heat and were then ‘marked men’ so to speak.

Somewhat naively, they grabbed a lap early in the final, but held on into the closing stages despite other pairs closing in on them on points.

It all came down to the final sprint and the Manx boys did themselves and the island proud, winning that to finish five points ahead William Tidball (1st Chard Wheelers) and Charley Calvert (Bournemouth Arrow-Collingwood) on 10 points. Jim Brown (VCUK PH-MAS Cycling Team) and Matthew Burke (Backstedt Cycling) collected bronze on nine.

Players from Laxey Football Club’s under-16 Miners’ team are celebrating after winning their age group category at the prestigious Nottingham International Cup final.

The Manx side’s attendance at the event alongside 1,500 other young people from around the world followed nine months of fundraising via bag packs, bingo nights and car washes.

More than 150 junior football teams from 14 countries as far apart as Uganda and Canada attended the four-day tournament based around Nottingham’s University campus facilities.

Laxey won their first group match against a team from Uganda 7-0 and also had a good match with Rochdale FC’s professional academy junior team.

A closely-contested final against a very strong and well-organised regional team from Toronto, ended goalless. But Laxey came out worthy recipients of the cup by winning an exciting penalty shootout 3-2.

The tournament marked the end of a 10-year journey for the team and coaches as they now move into senior football. Many will be play in senior teams in Manx football this season and some may well go on to represent the island senior team in the future.

Special article by Kurt Roosen, chief executive officer of MICTA , is relevant to our forthcoming election in the Isle of Man - and Brexit

I watched Donald Trump take up the Republican nomination for US President with more than a passing interest.

People certainly have varying opinions about him, but in my opinion what he seems to embody is a growing move in global politics away from the mainstream middle ground and towards the fringes.

The news means that the UK will leave the EU - an electoral ‘shot across the bows’ of the good ship Westminster by variously disenchanted people.

The same is happening all over Europe, where distinct left and right wing viewpoints are gaining more ground. In the UK, the persistence of UKIP as a credible player and even the election of Jeremy Corbyn can be seen as following the same trend. Despite what this looks like, I don’t believe that this represents a fundamental shift in people’s attitudes or political leanings, but instead I believe is a result of political fatigue.

People are generally fed up with ‘professional’ politicians whom they believe are insincere and evasive. The same could be said of the EU referendum where it would seem that what was rejected was the political union of the EU, but not the old ‘Common Market’. Increasing credence was given to those with strong (and often outspoken) opinions, and the ability express those opinions with genuine conviction. The problem is that conviction is a natural side effect of politics that lives more towards the edges of the political spectrum.

So, what about the Isle of Man?

The lack of a party system means that there is never a lurch from one ideology to another, a swing from left to right and back again.

This represents an advantage, in that it provides the manna of economics – continuity. In this environment you can be pretty certain that something that is part of a general policy now will remain so for a number of years to come. The shifts in policies you see elsewhere to match political party ideologies are not a feature of our politics.

Indeed, one characteristic of our system is that no one can guarantee to deliver on personal manifestos.

For each item a candidate puts forward, they would need to convince their peers of its and gain their support to actually do it.

This is what makes the Isle of Man a safe, stable and relatively middle ground political landscape that can be attractive to businesses and citizens alike.

However, one trap of not being able to say what you do with certainty is that the easy route is to what is called the ‘Politics of Opposition’ – let other people come up with the ideas and then shoot them down. Dialogues and debates need to be challenging and robust, but constructive – if things are simply opposed for opposing sake, then our political system can very quickly be ground to a halt.

On top of this we need to understand that our wealth is primarily generated not by the local economy, but by exports. The banks and general financial community that have been here since the early 1980’s did not place themselves here to capture the money and services of the local populace, but instead to act as a trading hub for activities elsewhere in the world. eGaming is the same. We are not the home of some of the biggest eGaming companies in the world because we have all suddenly as a nation become avid online gaming customers. The point is, we are very dependent on our global outlook and image to generate the wealth that we need to support our infrastructure, social care and general wellbeing. We are primarily a knowledge based exporting economy. But interestingly we have always really been in the position that the UK now faces, being “outside” the EU.

What this does mean is that the selection our political representatives is very important to our economic development. We don’t have parties and we don’t have manifestos, so we are very dependent on the individuals who represent us in Tynwald.

We exist and operate on a global stage and this is of primary importance now the trading position of the UK will be in turmoil for some time. So the politicians need to be very comfortable sitting on that stage and representing us as ‘Statesmen’ (and women) to carve our niche in a world context and to really understand the industries that make us tick.

In an increasingly global marketplace so we need to be able to operate with global credibility. Being exactly the same as other countries that are much larger does not give us an ability to compete and this is what the UK will also now have to wrestle with. Our prosperity going forward will rely on us being able to identify and capitalise on niches within the world that differentiate us. Some of those niches will rely on us being strong enough to assert degrees of independence whilst being on the fine line of global acceptance. We have to be smart and fleet of foot, and political credibility is key achieving this.

So here is what we need to think about as we come up to the election in September. Stability and continuity are positive aspects that we want to nurture, and a key to that in our system is independence of the politicians themselves – we don’t want to change that fundamental position. However, we do need to test our political candidates can demonstrate the potential to project knowledge of our economic niches beyond our borders. The next administration for us will be critical in resetting the constituent parts of the economy and how we fit into the world.

From the MICTA perspective, as the representation of the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) sector on the island, we will be inviting all candidates to display their digital credentials and aspirations.

On one side this is important for trade as 25 per cent of our economy (and growing) is now in this space. On the other side it is increasingly important to have integrated digital and inclusion strategies within Government to make sure we can best balance of efficiencies and service for Isle of Man Citizens. This may be the first Manx election that truly has to embrace the concept of a ‘Digital Island’.

A bonfire got out of control in the west of the island last night.

At just after 6pm fire crews from Peel and Douglas stations were sent to a farm on Peel Road, St John’s.

The bonfire had got out of control and set alight to about 20 large round hay bales stored in a nearby barn.

The owner of the property was able to help moving the bales with a telehandler so water could be applied and the fire extinguished.

The barn was found to have only received superficial damage due to a prompt call to the fire sService from a farm worker.

Fire crews from Peel station remained there for three hours damping down.

Firefighters fear a large red hose has been stolen.

It disappeared between 2:40pm and 7pm on Sunday.

It wa 20 metres long and red. It was taken from the scene of a fire in the St Jude’s crossroads area.

A spokesman said: ‘The hose may have been picked up with the intention of returning it to the fire service but this has not yet happened.

‘If anyone has any information about where the fire hose may be can they please inform Constable Jane Butler at Ramsey police on 812234. Alternatively, if you picked up the hose with the intention of returning it, please can you do so.’

Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management has been shortlisted in the Isle of Man Investment Management Company of the Year category of the 2017 Citywealth International Financial Centre Awards.

The company has won the title for three years running and this is the sixth time that Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management has been recognised at the awards.

Dermot Hamill, head of wealth management at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management in the Isle of Man said: ‘We are very proud to be shortlisted for the Citywealth Investment Management Company of the Year in the Isle of Man again.

“The Citywealth Awards are important as they highlight the expertise and services of the short-listed companies and, in part, the awards are voted for by our clients.

‘Our focus has always been to provide high-quality investment advice and exceptional service to our clients.

‘Winning this award three years running and being shortlisted again for 2017 is a great accomplishment and an excellent way to conclude our 20th anniversary year in the Isle of Man.’

Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management has also been shortlisted for the Investment Management Company of the Year Channel Islands category. The Citywealth International Financial Centre Awards highlight the excellence of the advisers and managers in the private wealth sector in major international financial centres.

Voting for the 2017 Citywealth International Financial Centre Awards closes on October 30, 2016 and the awards event will be held in London on January 18. 2017.

A man’s body was discovered in the west of the island last night.

It had been washed up on a remote beach.

Police are conducting inquiries to establish his identity.

A post mortem examination will be conducted to establish the cause of death.

Police said they would like to thank all who assisted in the finding and the recovery, including the members of the public who let them know and remained on the beach until help was sought from the coastguard, Peel RNLI and a local farmer.

Police say that the body is not Josh Caley’s

Peel & St John’s have retained the Isle of Man Premiership title.

On Saturday Cronkbourne were defeated by Castletown and so, with only one game left, cannot overtake the Saints at the top of the table.

The Tromode bowlers had done a fine job in dismissing Town for only 94 in 33 overs.

Sam Mills took 4-13 and there were two wickets each for Jason Antrobus and Max Stokoe.

Matt Ansell’s eight overs cost only 14 runs and six of the batsmen were clean bowled.

Phil Littlejohns was the top scorer with 33 from 58 balls.

In reply Cronkbourne lost an early wicket, but Mills and Nathan Knights took the total to 38 for 1 before disaster struck.

Needing only 56 runs with nine wickets in hand, the side fell to the bowling by Seb Hopkins and Tom Kennaugh.

Both Knights and Mills made 17, but six of the remaining batsmen failed to score.

Hopkins ended with the splendid figures of 5-21 from his eight overs while Kennaugh returned 4-11.

Cronkbourne were finally dismissed for 60 in 17 overs.

This was Castletown’s sixth Premiership win of the season and lifts them into second place in the league.

Results

Isle of Man Premiership

Castletown 94 (Phil Littlejohns 33, Garreth Roome 12: Sam Mills 4-13, Max Stokoe 2-21); Cronkbourne 60 (Sam Mills 17, Nathan Knights 17: Seb Hopkins 5-21, Tom Kennaugh 4-11). Castletown won by 34 runs.

Premiership

P W Nd L Pts

Peel & St John’s 9 8 0 1 166

Castletown 10 6 0 4 142

Cronkbourne 9 6 0 3 140

Schools XI 8 3 0 5 90

Crosby 8 3 0 5 78

Ramsey 8 0 0 8 27

A manager has admitted stealing £4,251 from the Spar shop she ran in Ramsey.

Michelle Atherton, of Kiondroghad Road in Andreas, pleaded guilty to a theft charge in court.

Prosecutor Barry Swain told the court how the money had been taken between November 2014 and May 2016.

Atherton, who is 55, was in charge of banking the daily takings six days a week.

On May 20 an accountant at Mannin Retail, a subsidiary of Heron and Brearley who own the shop, flagged up that there was a £2,625 discrepancy between the takings on April 30 and what had been banked.

Atherton was told about the missing money and she said she would find it.

However, further checks were made by the accountant and it was discovered that a further £1,626 was missing from the shop’s safe.

Atherton was quizzed further and admitted she had taken the money because she had been having financial problems.

She confessed that she had taken the case for personal use saying that she had started off taking low amounts but then increased.

Police were called and in an interview Atherton gave ‘no comment’ responses to questions.

In court, both Mr Swain and defence advocate Peter Russell submitted that the case was suitable to remain in summary court.

Magistrates agreed and adjourned the case until September 15 when sentencing will take place after a probation report has been prepared.

Just days after being rescued after falling from a cliff and being missing for a week, Lakeland terrier Ralph is now enjoying a holiday in Northern Ireland.

The one-year-old terrier went missing during his morning walk, at around 8.30am, on July 25 but was found at the foot of a 500ft cliff at the beginning of last week.

He was rescued by a group in a dinghy who spotted him on the Peel cliff.

Ralph had been on his usual morning walk with owners Trudy and Peter Crowe when he fell off the cliffs at the back of Peel Hill and vanished.

‘We have done this walk hundreds of times,’ Trudy said. ‘At the end of the path Peter threw the ball and he bolted and that was the last we saw of him.

‘We went looking for him and he had vanished, we think he sniffed out a rabbit.’

Trudy said they spent 15 hours looking for their pet searching the areas around Peel Hill, up towards Corrin’s Folly and near to the quarry. ‘From midnight to 1am I was sitting on the bench on Peel Hill just hoping he would come back, I was just sitting there squeaking his toy.’

The couple, who live in Peel, didn’t realise that Ralph had gone over the cliff with Trudy describing it as ‘absolutely unbelievable’.

On the day their pert went missing Peel Lifeboat and Coastguard were called out to help with the search and over the week numerous members of the public helped Trudy and Peter with the search efforts.

Trudy said every night Peel Hill was a run with people looking for the one-year-old dog. ‘The whole community pulled together to find him, there was people coming up to me and helping that I didn’t even know. I think most of Peel was looking for him!’

She described Ralph being found as an ‘absolute miracle’ and said despite his week-long ordeal he only has a cut paw and is a bit thin. ‘He’s in really good health and is eating like a horse now, I think he’s making up for lost time. He’s getting back to his old self.’

Trudy added: ‘I want to thank everybody who helped Peel lifeboat and coastguard, the searchers and an extra thank you to the boys that found him.’

Rob Kinrade and Dave Bell, partners in investigation agency, Expol, were finalists in the Customer Service Award at last year’s Isle of Man Newspapers’ Awards for Excellence. JULIE BLACKBURN has been to see them

When two senior detectives retire what do they do with all the investigative skills they have acquired during their time on the force?

Dave Bell and Rob Kinrade started an investigation agency, Expol. Nothing unusual there – after all, we see ex-detectives doing that all the time on the television.

Only this is real life, not TV drama, and Dave and Rob don’t spend their time plaguing current police enquiries with their theories about who the murderer is. In real life, certainly here in the Isle of Man, their skills are put to much better use in the business sector.

Dave Bell explained: ‘Our services are designed for corporate risk. We offer three main areas of expertise: investigation, employment screening and training.’

Employment screening is about looking into the background of prospective employees.

As they point out, a candidate may impress at an hour-long interview but there may be things that are not disclosed that an employer would not be comfortable with.

Rob said: ‘We tend to find that the biggest discrepancies revolve around qualifications, especially university qualifications which is where people tend to gild the lily a bit. They might say they’ve got a degree in physics and they might have done a foundation course, but when you really drill down they’ve not completed the course.’

And it’s not so much the lack of qualifications that this reveals as the lack of integrity, as Rob points out: ‘If someone lies to get a job then do you really want them in your organisation?’

Social media is another obvious place where less attractive traits may be revealed. Quite apart from the obvious things like racism and bullying, Dave and Rob have seen abusive comments made about a candidate’s prospective employers, and even people claiming that they have got the job and are doing it when they are still only applicants.

Rob added: ‘I don’t do Facebook – neither of us do which should tell you something!’

Expol’s corporate training service includes their flagship two-day internet investigation course and courses on anti-money laundering.

Their investigation work tends to be less about the obvious, like finding people who have gone missing, and more about things like corporate or insurance fraud and limiting the associated risks.

David said: ‘It’s a fact of life that some businesses experience internal difficulties from time to time.

‘A lot can be at stake and situations can be fast moving. Between us at Expol we have a wealth of investigative experience in dealing confidentially with difficult situations.

‘We regularly work with defence teams in criminal cases and legal teams in complex civil matters.

‘Insurance fraud can range from feigned injuries or disability to arranged car collisions.’

Rob said: ‘Working with the industry and specific insurers we can use surveillance and other procedures to prove or disprove a reported situation.’

A big percentage of their investigation work is producing due diligence reports, checking the integrity of a new client, whether it be an individual or a company, checking that prospective investment isn’t laundered money, and so on.

In order to do this, Rob and Dave have built up a network of trustworthy contacts around the world.

Rob said: ‘It’s a major part of our business: this calendar year we’ve had work going on in Canada, South Africa, Australia, the Middle East regularly, Russia, the UK all the time – we’ve even had work done in Iraq.

‘The due diligence side of things is not just a scrape of the internet, it’s actually someone on the ground in whatever country we’re talking about, complementing those internet enquiries by doing a few of what we call field enquiries.

‘We’ve built that network of contacts up over the 10 years we have been in business: there’s a lot of ex cops, like ourselves, whilst some come from the legal profession.’

Dave and Rob’s Awards

experience:

‘We decided to enter the Awards because we just thought the time was right. We’d been going for 10 years and we’d learned a lot, we’d learned by our mistakes, and the company was doing well.

‘It was a good gauge of what our clients thought of us because we sent out a number of requests to clients for evidence of our work to support our entry and we were overwhelmed by the praise we received.

‘On the night, we decided to take a table at the Sefton for a meal before the presentations, to take our clients out and thank them for their support.

‘The whole night was great for networking and getting ourselves known.

‘There are a lot of movers and shakers there from various sectors, including people who probably weren’t aware of us, so it was a bit of a shop window and a place to be seen.

‘You can gauge it by the number of people mentioning it to you afterwards - the feedback was just amazing.

‘And what was also amazing was the night itself – you don’t see too many nights like that on the Isle of Man so to be a part of that glitzy night was really, really nice.

‘It was a great night out and it was well worth it.’

What impressed the

judges:

‘The continuing growth of Expol is a result of the excellent service they provide. The company has transformed from a simple investigation agency into a leading advisor of corporate institutions, the egaming industry, financial institutions and private clients.

‘One customer wrote: “No matter what the challenge, without fail you have accomplished the assignment within the agreed schedule and to a high standard.”’

l For more details on how to enter this year’s Isle of Man Newspapers’ Awards for Excellence, call 695695 or visit www.iomtoday.co.im for more details and entry forms to download.

Entries close on Monday, September 26.

Work on the island’s first combined fire and ambulance station began today.

Home Affairs Minister Juan Watterson MHK performed the sod cutting ceremony at the site in Ronaldsway.

The facility is being built opposite the airport, near to the Sefton Express Hotel and Strix factory.

Scheduled for completion in summer 2017, the station will provide a drive-in drive-out capability for ambulances and fire engines, facilities for retained firefighters and ambulance staff, and a training ground incorporating a 10-metre tower.

Once the combined station is operational, the southern ambulance service will leave its current base at Four Roads, which will become a replacement for Port Erin fire station.

The government says the £1.45 million investment in facilities, approved Tynwald in June, is necessary as the existing fire stations at Farrant’s Way in Castletown and Droghadfayle Road in Port Erin are both more than 50 years old and do not meet current standards.

The department’s plans will allow the two government-owned sites to be released for redevelopment.

Mr Watterson said: ‘This represents the beginning of a new era in collaborative working between front-line emergency services in the Isle of Man.

‘The combined fire and ambulance station will meet operational demands, provide strategic emergency cover and better serve the community in line with the Department’s commitment to keeping people safe.’

In today’s Isle of Man Examiner: Firefighters say goodbye to station.