Campaigners in Mid Sussex have vowed to turn up the heat on councillors who scrapped hot meals in primary schools.

An action group to fight for the reinstatement of cooked lunches urged parents at its first public meeting this week to bombard county councillors and MPs with letters demanding the return of hot meals.

No county councillors braved the heated meeting at St Andrews Church's parish hall in Burgess Hill.

Instead West Sussex director of education Richard Bunker and his back-up team took the flack.

Mr Bunker explained he had fought for years to keep the service, but underfunding from central Government had forced the council to look at its priorities.

He told the audience of more than 20: "We were really forced to go down the line of having a cold meal

service." and later added: "Fundamentally we are in the education service, not in the catering service."

Parents were sceptical about claims from the West Sussex team at the meeting that the packed cold

meals provided across the county met nutritional standards.

After the meeting chairman Anne Jones, from Burgess Hill, said: "We are not going to give up now. We think parents have not been given enough opportunity to say whether they are prepared to pay more to have the hot meals service or not."

Speaker Susan Brighouse, from the Child Poverty Action Group, said parents in Edinburgh had won their fight to win back the service and urged the group to stay positive.

Richard Symonds, a father of two primary school children from Ifield, Crawley, told Mr Bunker he did not accept the reasons for axing the hot meals and added: "I don't buy it. It doesn't ring true to me as a parent who is struggling and not to other parents who don't have the luxury of time and energy and money to come here.

"I am an angry taxpayer because basically I feel I am being sold short. I think I have been sold a pup. I am angry and I think the situation does demand immediate reinstatement."

Parents criticised the removal of hot meals equipment from closed kitchens, which they said would hinder any attempts to restart the service. Keith Todd, head of Horsham's Greenway School, said: "The move by the county council to dismantle the kitchens in the county is out of order."

Unemployed Graham Watson, 42, from Lindfield, who has two primary school children, challenged county councillors to eat the lunches for a week.

Mr Bunker was praised for attending the meeting, but speakers said the people responsible for the situation, the county councillors, were out of touch with what people wanted and should have been there to explain.

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