PRIMARY pupils in Irvine and Kilwinning can look forward to free school meals from next year.

North Ayrshire Council have announced that they are set to provide free school meals from all pupils in P1-3 from the start of next year.

As a result, 22 full-time cooking jobs in the council’s Catering Team will be created, utilising five additional primary school kitchens as “hub units”.

This will mean that the Catering Team will have to prepare an extra 2,000 meals a day when the scheme launches in January.

The Scottish Government has committed funding of £16.5m in 2014/15 and £54m in 2015/16 to extend the entitlement of free school meals across Scotland.

Currently, the school meals service in North Ayrshire operates on a hub and spoke model involving 25 school hub kitchens cooking meals served to all schools throughout the area.

Two of the additional schools used as kitchen hubs would be Irvine’s Glebe Primary and St Luke’s Primary in Kilwinning.

Cabinet Member for Environment and Infrastructure, Councillor Tony Gurney, said: “I believe that this scheme will help to further improve the uptake of the council’s high quality, nutritious meals.

“This national scheme will be beneficial for all families with children in P1-P3, but especially those who have previously been just above the threshold for free school meals.

“We are fortunate to have the capacity in many of our school kitchens to be able to cater for the anticipated increase in the school meals uptake.

“A huge amount of effort has been put in by council staff to make sure we are ready for the increase in 2015.”