It is a green estate in Shropshire, heated by a state-of-the-art biomass boiler. But people living in the homes, on the outskirts of Ludlow, are fed up with a system that constantly breaks down and costs them an arm and a leg.

They live on the Rock Green estate, one of scores across the country that have taken on their own heating system in an effort to be environmentally friendly.

In fact the development of 91 sustainable homes has won awards for being a pioneer in clean energy.

But residents say they are not impressed after problem after problem with the heating, which was created along with the estate in 2009. And today 41 one of them have produced a petition calling for a review of whole system and set up.

South Shropshire Housing Association, which runs the site, insists problems had been resolved and today denied tenants had been charged for downtime when not using heating.

Michael Reading, an engineer who has lived in Rocks Green Crescent on the estate for two-and-a-half years, disagreed.

He said in January his heating bill had doubled for no obvious reason, and tenants were unhappy because they could not switch energy supplier unlike others they had no option but to use the woodfuel system.

He said: There have been problems from day one. Tenants have various issues with the heating but one major concern we all have is the pricing and accuracy of the readings taken each month.

It seems there can be a massive jump from one month to the next, and it seems theres no way of turning the heating completely off. Even if you switch it off at the mains, apparently its still generating heat and youre still paying for it.

He said some tenants were paying over 120 a month for little or no usage, and some were worried they were racking up bills of more than 1,000.

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Residents up in arms over 'problem after problem' with Ludlow estate's eco heating system