SWINDON Council is reviewing the way it provides school meals because the service is currently proving too costly to run.

The review follows a decision to close Covingham Park Junior School's kitchen because only 10 of the school's 240 pupils ate hot meals.

Hot meals will still be provided at the school but they will not be cooked on site and could be provided from a school nearby.

Coun Fionuala Foley, the lead member for Swindon Services, has warned that schools or parents will still have to pay more for their meals in future after the service ran at a loss last year.

In the days when the council provided the meals to all schools, it made a profit at large secondary schools and that subsidised the cost of giving meals to smaller primary schools.

But two years ago schools were allowed to choose their own contractor for school dinners. All of the secondary schools in Swindon bar Headlands now have their food made and served by outside contractors.

This has left the council with the loss making primary schools.

A letter has been sent to all remaining schools to find out how the service could be improved and raises the possibility of increasing the charges for meals.

It is understood that a group of five primary schools in West Swindon have agreed a deal with a private contractor.

Coun Foley (Con, Old Town and Lawns) said: "At the moment we are not looking at closing the school meals service at all.

"There is no money in giving meals to primary schools but it is a service we have always provided.

"What we ask is that schools give us the chance to put in a tender.

"The private companies will cream off all of the best schools; the new ones where they do not have to spend a lot of money on the kitchens.

"What happens to the rural schools that no private contractor would touch?"

John Short, director of Swindon Services, said: "The danger is if the private firms take all the best schools, do we continue to subsidise or pull out?

"It would be wrong for the council to pull out of the schools and leave them high and dry, but no decision will be made until the end of this financial year."

Colin Green, headteacher of Covingham Park Junior School, stressed that despite the kitchen's closure it would continue to supply hot meals, cooked off-site, to pupils.

He said: "We are in discussion with Swindon Services about school meals.

"We hope to improve the service by providing cold foods such as salads and baguettes, meaning we offer healthy food at breaks and lunchtime.

"More than 200 of our pupils bring sandwiches from home so in the kitchens we have a large space that we can make better use of.

"It will improve our disabled facilities, staff facilities and resource room."