Gas firm in talks with Eco Village residents

Only half of the 400 expected homes were built at the local also known as the Eco Village after the developer went into administration. Since then doubts have been raised whether the biomass plant would ever have been financially viable.

Residents are now facing running costs for the wood-chip fuelled heating that are three and a half times those of natural gas.

Alastair Pollock, Business Development Director at Phoenix Natural Gas, said: “We have spent the past few weeks meeting with Woodbrook residents and public representatives from the local area. Since natural gas came to Northern Ireland in 1996 new build developments have almost exclusively been constructed using natural gas appliances where available.”

Woodbrook was seen as a forerunner for green technology and the district heating system fuelled by biomass was seen as one of its big selling points.

“In the marketing literature homeowners were promised major savings and now it turns out that the company currently providing the biomass heating has served notice to the residents that the system will be turned off this December” Mr Pollock said.

He said that collectively residents may now have to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds to remove the biomass system and install another heating solution.    

Mr Pollock added: “Phoenix are obviously keen to help if we can, but making natural gas available would have been so much easier when the properties were being constructed.  We have major concerns about the district heating system in place and the construction work that we would need to carry out in the area could mean that all of the homes may lose heating and hot water for periods of time whilst repairs are being made.  

“We have been encouraged by the support that we have received from the residents in completing our early assessments of the site and we hope to be in a position to confirm whether or not it is viable for natural gas to be made available to them in the coming weeks.”