SCHOOL dinners in Camden fail to meet basic nutritional standards with thousands of children going hungry, a study obtained by the New Journal shows.
The report, commissioned by the Town Hall, shows that not only do the heavily processed meals contain too little calcium, vitamin C, fibre and carbohydrates – they also just aren’t big enough.
Officials wrote to catering giant Scolarest on Monday, demanding answers.
But the firm insists it offers healthy options and blames children for preferring processed food – an excuse derided as “rubbish” and an “abnegation of responsibility” by campaigning mums.
Scolarest, part of Compass Group, the world’s largest caterer, has come under fire from parents, teachers and children and been involved in a number of controversies since winning the contract to supply Camden’s schools in 2002. Camden urged it to improve last year after a flood of complaints.

AN investigation into the fate of children who have lost limbs in the Iraq war by a former New Journal reporter, Lee Gordon, has prompted Hampstead MP Glenda Jackson to raise the question in parliament.
After Ms Jackson read an article by Lee Gordon in last week’s New Journal about the failure of the government to help children in a village near Basra in southern Iraq she tabled a question to Minister for International Aid Hilary Benn.

FED-UP tenants and leaseholders are ready to march on Parliament in a fresh bid to convince the government to improve their council homes.
The House of Commons Housing Group is due to meet all day on Tuesday and Camden’s tenant leaders are planning to use the opportunity to lobby MPs for a new funding plan.
They are furious that the government has left Camden short of the money it needs to repair crumbling housing stock – simply because residents voted against Whitehall’s policy of hiving off homes to housing associations or new-style boards known as Arms-Length Management Organisations (Almos) in December 2003.

A POPULAR doctor has been shut out of her surgery the High Court has heard.
Dr Marian Latchman was told to clear her desk at Regent’s Park Medical Centre in Cumberland Market, Regent’s Park by her colleagues Dr Harbikramjit Chandok and Dr Christine Pickard on January 7 after relations between the three turned sour.
More than 100 patients have signed petitions demanding her return while both sides accuse the other of sabotaging the partnership.

SPRING came early at the Kentish Town City Farm on Friday as three lambs were born.
Snow swirled outside as farm workers delivered twins – a ram and a ewe – on Friday morning, both orphans following the death of their mother, Buttercup, as a result of the birth. They instead drew their affection from the warmth of a 60-watt bulb glowing over their pen and regular visits from the farm’s young helpers, milk bottles in hand.