SOUTH Lakeland children appear to have lost their appetite for hot dinners and are putting the future of the kitchens at two of the area's small primary schools at risk of closure, reports Jennie Dennett.

A 15p hike in the price of meals in February coupled with a trend towards packed lunches has meant that several village schools have experienced a dramatic fall in the number of pupils tucking in to dishes prepared at Coniston and Ambleside CE Primary Schools.

Louise Elson, the head of kitchens at Coniston CE Primary School, which also provides meals for Langdale CE Primary, said that from Easter there was a 28 per cent dip in the number of pupils having school dinners from 40 down to 29.

"We don't want to lose the school kitchen," she said.

"But if the numbers continue to dip down it isn't worth keeping the kitchen going."

Meanwhile, at Ambleside CE Primary School, head cook Ann Gornall reported losing 21 out of 140 junior diners to packed lunches since the start of the spring term and a further five have been lost at Grasmere Primary, which the kitchen also serves.

The arrival of warmer weather is expected to cook up even more trouble with Cumbria Contract Services (CCS) - the county's catering service - predicting it will further serve to increase the popularity of packed lunches.

In an effort to fight back CCS's South Lakes area manager Julie Watkinson said kitchens would be providing packed lunches over the summer for the same price as a school dinner (£ 1.50).

"A lot of people would lose their job if everyone went on (home-bought) packed lunches," said Mrs Watkinson.

"We cannot afford to pay staff to wait for the hot meals to come back on.

If meals don't pick up the little schools will lose their kitchens."

Mrs Watkinson denied that the controversial price rise in February had had a significant impact on the popularity of school dinners.

She said CCS saw the number of dinners served by staff fall by 1.5% immediately after the price rise - a fall of 60 meals out of the 4,000 normally dished-up every day - yet weeks later the take up rose again.

But Mrs Elson believed the price rise has not helped take up and told the Gazette: "It's a big jump over the week particularly if you have two children.

If you are doing sandwiches you don't tend to notice that you are spending as much."

As part of National School Meals Week, last week special themed menus were laid on across the county.

Figures to assess the success of the promotion were not yet available but Mrs Elson said that at Coniston she had tempted a number of children back on to school dinners.

Cumbria Contract Services is under pressure to perform this year after losing £600,000 from the catering service in 2001 which forced up the price of school dinners in 2002 and earned stern criticism for its managers from Cumbria County Council.

CCS, who are contractors for the county council, have since been forced to find savings of £247,000 per year on overheads.

Nobody was available from CCS to comment.