‘Plainly wrong’: London flat dwellers fight shock £200,000 heating bill

Resident Calum Matheson was determined to fight the heat network bill and eventually won the case at a property tribunal. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

‘If I could move, I would – to a place without a heat network. But I can’t while this debt is hanging over me,” says Anja Georgiou.

The mother lives with her family in a rented flat in the River Gardens development in Greenwich in south-east London where, three years ago, residents were shocked to be presented with a surprise £200,000 bill for heating and hot water.