The City of Kamloops knows it has a labour shortage coming, and work is underway to help local businesses meet the future demand for workers.

Effective at 8 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 16, 2016, the current Category 2 and Category 3 open burning bans in the Clearwater Fire Zone and Salmon Arm Fire Zone will be rescinded.

Plans to upgrade Kamloops Transit’s full fleet of busses to compressed natural gas (CNG) powered vehicles that come with modern features like Closed Circuit TV (CCTV) received the green light from city council after a successful pilot that showed these busses to perform well in all four seasons while garnering significant savings in operating costs.

To protect sensitive grasslands and riparian ecosystems in the Thompson Rivers Natural Resource District, the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations is introducing measures to restrict motorized recreational use in the Lac du Bois/Batchelor and Lower Noble Creek areas.

Given the marked increase in wildfire activity in the Okanagan Valley and elsewhere in the province over the past week, the BC Wildfire Service is again urging the public to be extremely cautious with any allowed fire use.

The project to pave 48.5 kilometres of Highway 5 between the North Thompson Bridge in Avola and Whitewater Bridge is now complete.

Another hot-in-place asphalt resurfacing project is now complete in the Kamloops area.

Modern technology, improved infrastructure and newer and cleaner buses are topping the list of BC Transit projects for Kamloops soon to roll out under phase one of the new Public Transit Infrastructure Fund.

Carpentry students at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) will benefit from the purchase of various tools, including new sliding compound mitre saws, routers and survey instruments, as part of a $300,000 investment by the Province in new industry-standard trades equipment.

Two local companies will begin resurfacing work in the coming weeks on Highway 97C and the Trans-Canada Highway with the awarding of contracts to Belvedere Place Contracting Ltd. and Dawson Construction.