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Jackie McCarthy and Vannita Popli both live on the Duffryn housing estate in Newport. They have identical three-bedroomed homes.

Jackie is a working mum living with her partner and two small children. Her house is a hive of activity particularly in the evening and at weekends.

Vannita couldn't be more different. Her children have flown the nest, so Vannita lives the single life, working hard and playing hard. Her home is little more than a stylish place to sleep.

Two women, living in the same houses, with very different lifestyles. So why do they pay the same for their heating and hot water?

To answer that, we have to go back to the 1970s. When flared trousers and flock wallpaper were all the rage, the distinctive Duffryn housing estate was built with the first residents moving in from 1978.

With their houses came a state-of-the-art communal heating and hot water system - and residents loved it.

"The houses were lovely and warm and that's what you wanted then, isn't it, in your new home," one resident, who still lives on the estate, told X-Ray.

But today, that heating system has lost its gloss. All the homes on the estate, almost 1,000, are still served by it. Residents pay a flat rate per month based on the size of their homes. Summer or winter, the payment remains the same.

For working mum Jackie, the £78 a month is just not good value.

"Having to pay this monthly fixed sum, which is £900 a year that I pay, I don't feel I'm getting value for money. I've got no control, whether the heating is on or off it makes no difference."

She also worried that the system is not healthy for her children. She says the house is hot all of the time, whatever the weather, as communal pipes run through the roof.

"The windows are open at night for just to have air. My three-year-old has coughed constantly since she was born, especially at night, it's always worse at night, I think it's just basically dry air," she said.

Vannita feels even more strongly than Jackie: "I feel that the system in Duffryn it really discriminates against people who live alone and who are out all day.

"My energy use is very low. I do not have my radiators on when I am not here and when I am here, because the house is well insulated and it's a terrace, it does not get really cold.

It faces the sun in the back so it gets very warm all day, so I only, in the winter, just crack open a radiator for heat."

She's believes that the flat rate payment also means that many residents would not even consider saving energy or being green.

Friends tell her to open the windows when she complains their homes are too hot, they won't turn off the radiators because they are paying for them. There's no incentive to save energy.

This also concerns Helen Northmore of the Energy Saving Trust.

Helen told X-Ray: "The problem with flat rates is that it encourages people to waste energy because their view is "I'm going to get it at this rate so I am going to use it as much as I can, when what we are trying to do across the country is to encourage people to use less energy.

"Also the impact is that if you do use lots of energy on this estate, the people are going to end up paying for that in overall higher fees."

Vannita has now been refusing to pay her heating/hot water bills for months and she's not apologising:

"I'm going to take this all the way to Europe if necessary.I am not going to sit by and keep paying £78 a month, which is going to increase, for something that I am not having the benefit of. I think it's grossly unfair."

The heating system was managed by Newport City Council, but recently responsibility was handed over to Newport City Homes, a housing association which has taken over the city council's housing stock.

With that stock, came the Duffryn heating system and the residents' complaints.

Some, like Jackie, want meters to be installed: "If they put a meter in each property then you could choose whether to use it to the maximum and pay according to your means."

Others, like Vannita, want the system scrapped: "I don't want to be on a meter because if I'm on a meter I am still responsible to pay maintenance costs and I'm not happy to pay maintenance costs, I want to pay my own maintenance costs."

Newport City Homes told X-Ray it agrees with residents' concerns and has employed engineers to come up with a plan for the future of the system.

This could include metering or a new system altogether. No solution, the housing association warned, will be easy. Any changes will be expensive and take several years to complete.