Communal Gas Meter

macman

The communal gas meter wouldn't tell you anything anyway, even if you could see it. It appears that you have a district heating scheme with an HIU and meter in each property. So you are being billed for the heat energy taken via the HIU, not for the gas bill.
As pointed out above, these schemes are completely unregulated and the price will depend on the commercial gas tariff negotiated by the LL or management company.

Robin9

All you are going to see is this sort of thing 

EssexHebridean

Unicorn91 said:

EssexHebridean said:

WhiskersTheWonderCat said:

So there's one gas meter for the entire building complex? How do they figure out the use for each individual flat? 

IIRC from others who've been in similar schemes it's usually either via submeters (which sounds like not the case here, unfortunately) or by some form of pre-agreed split based on the size of the individual properties. 

OP - can you speak with the letting agent and ask them to let you have, in writing, the exact agreement around the gas use - if they say they don't have it, then they will need to speak with the LL to get it I'd suggest. It's not reasonable for you to have a utility bill over which you have neither any control nor any real knowledge of how it works. 

I assume that the gas is definitely purely for the heating - the hot water component is still, so far as you know, included in the rent you are paying? 

Thank you for your reply. 

We have a heating/cooling meter that reads kwh attached to the pipes in our cupboard. This is what they took the first reading from on the bill.

No they removed the heating of the water from the tenancy agreement so the bill is now for hot water & heating. 

Yes I'm going to get in touch and ask for everything in writing thank you. 
The standing charge is 0.28p on the bill. 

Hopefully you have seen a rent reduction as a result of this?