Councils not choosing from same menu over plan for super kitchen

Some days, as Henry John Deutschendorf Jr beautifully told us in song, are diamonds.

And some days are stones. Perhaps the primary school Broon didn’t exactly see it that way when John Denver’s words were wafting from the eight track (remember them?)

But school dinners helped me get what the Country Roads genius was driving at.

Pink custard and chocolate crispies. Or “frog’s eggs”.

The dinner hall diamonds and stones among piles of coloured plates and funny-tasting water from gnarled plastic cups.

Like country music, school dinners are all a matter of taste – and tapioca pudding wasn’t the one to tickle my buds.

The desperate dessert once derided as the nation’s most hated school lunch is likely off the menu now, but for Angus and Dundee youngsters what at least remains on the table is a plan to dish up dinners in a cross-council partnership which had been heading for the bin.

Tayside’s three local authorities initially cooked up the scheme to create a Dundee super kitchen from where school food would be sent to hubs in the hinterlands of Angus and Perthshire.

However, the prospect of job losses stuck in the craw of Perth and Kinross councillors and they dropped out of the meal deal.

It left Angus officials with the unpalatable prospect of not only their food scheme work going to waste, but also cast doubt on the whole plan for new early years provision across the county as Scots councils prepare to more than double the number of hours provided for nursery-aged youngsters by this time next year.

Investment in the Dundee kitchen HQ and new early years centres in Forfar and Carnoustie were elements in the wider plan which could have come under a bit of heat had Angus not agreed to stick with their city partners in the project.

So, at least something has been salvaged.

But it seems only five minutes since the western gateway superschool idea was shelved when the three areas couldn’t reach agreement, and a Tay Cities Deal which has a long, long way to go has already exposed cracks in the cross-councils relationship.

In these straitened times, the dream is to sing from the same sheet.

But when one man’s pink custard may be another’s tapioca pudding it seems the road ahead will remain a conglomerate of diamonds and stones. Get in touch with your local office at Dundee or send a letter to The Courier at letters@thecourier.co.uk

Pink custard and chocolate crispies is off the menu but cracks in council relationships remain.