MALVERN Boilers Ltd has been awarded a government grant towards developing a revolutionary new heating technology.

The Department of Trade and Industry SMART award will provide £45,000 of the £150,000 development costs for what is believed to be the world's first plastic combustion chamber for a gas-fired condensing boiler.

The firm, based in Spring Lane, has an admirable history for the use of plastic in boiler construction. In 1991 it introduced plastic flue systems, followed with plastic condensate management systems and plastic combustion fans in the mid-90s. These innovations are now commonplace in the condensing boiler market.

Clive Perry, the firm's managing director, said the award was a great help to the new project.

"For a small company like ourselves it's a very useful award. It proves that we have got quite a good idea and it would be more difficult without it," he said.

Mr Perry said that Malvern Boilers' products were now so efficient that temperatures in combustion chambers were low enough to allow plastic to be used.

"It's lighter, corrosion-free and more cost-effective," he said.

Details of the latest project are being kept confidential, but Mr Perry said the materials used would not be exotic or expensive. The new technology will likely be used initially in swimming pools.

Trials of the new system are due to take place in early 2004. Its viability should be known by June and the system should be on the market by 2005.