Dinner ladies from Oxfordshire schools will be able to learn how to cook healthy lunches in a new state-of-the-art training kitchen.

The kitchen at Oxford and Cherwell Valley College, in Oxpens Road, Oxford, was opened by restaurateur and food writer Prue Leith — a judge on the BBC television programme Great British Menu, who lives in Chastleton, near Chipping Norton.

Up to 16 dinner ladies will be able to train at any one time in the centre.

College spokesman Cid Carr said the facility would be known as the Feast Training Kitchen — which stands for food excellence and skills training.

She said: "This was done in response to the big Jamie Oliver drive to get people to tackle obesity.

"This brand new training kitchen is supposed to get all the dinner ladies in the county to do up-to-the-minute training and retraining."

Ms Leith met some of the the dinner ladies taking the course and spoke to them about their training.

She said: "School cooks are the heartbeat of our school food revolution — transforming lunches and children's health. They deserve the best training."

The kitchen also houses state-of-the-art culinary equipment, such as blast chillers and salamanders — which is a special type of grill.

Programme manager Mark Roberts said: "School kitchens have certainly come a long way since I was a lad and the cooks need to learn how to use equipment like this these days."

People taking part in the new course aimed at the county's dinner ladies, will obtain an NVQ level two qualification in food processing and cooking.