Council chiefs are to face caterers at an employment tribunal to decide who is to pay the redundancy costs of around £300,000 for sacked dinner staff.

Five hundred dinner ladies lost their jobs when West Sussex County Council axed hot meals.

The authority sparked fury when it awarded a contract for cold lunch boxes to a new caterer.

Now the wrangling looks set to end and redundant dinner staff across the county will be given their payments after the hearing which is due to start on September 4.

The tribunal will be held in Brighton and is expected to last ten days.

The county council believes that former contractors Castle View Services should make the payments because it employed the staff as part of an "undertaking which ceased."

Council bosses also claim that Castle View is responsible for the contracts of managers employed in the meals service, and not the council, or its new meals contractor, Gardner Merchant.

But Castle View says it is not responsible as the meals contract was awarded to a new contractor.

The county council cut the hot meals service in a bid to save £500,000 a year last year and made the dinner staff redundant in September.

There were a series of campaigns and protests against the move from parents.

Kitchens in schools across West Sussex were stripped of their equipment after the announcement.

But West Sussex County councillors defended their actions by saying that the number of schoolchildren having a hot meal had slumped.

They said primary schools have welcomed the chance to convert kitchens into extra teaching space.

A spokesman for West Sussex County Council confirmed the hearing date.

But he was unable to comment due to the pending hearing.