£11bn bill for Miliband's bid to scrap gas boilers

ED Miliband will splash more than £11billion of taxpayer cash to create mega heat networks in a net zero drive to replace gas boilers, the Express can reveal.

- BY BILL CURTIS

The Energy Secretary is working on major plans with five councils that could eventually mean a fifth of Britons are forced on to shared heating systems in the biggest shakeup in decades.

Under the hefty £11.4bn government plans, individual gas boilers will be replaced with a central heating plant that warms water in one location and then pumps it through underground pipes to hundreds of thousands of households.

Hospitals, universities, factories, sports facilities and police stations are among the buildings that would immediately lose control of their own boilers and rely on a shared public heating system for warmth and hot water.

Mr Miliband has previously said he wants heat networks to serve a fifth of UK households by 2050, according to The Times.