Elderly residents of a sheltered housing complex have been left without a daily hot meal for three months.
Pensioners in the extra care flats at Granary Lane, Newport, were previously served a hot lunch five days a week.
However, their healthy dinners stopped when their cook retired in July and there was no one to take over.
Instead, they have been making do with soup and bread delivered by a local cafe after taking it upon themselves to find an alternative.
Although Fife Council did offer its meals-on-wheels service, it has come under fire for failing to hire a new cook before the employee retired.
There are 23 flats in the scheme and residents pay for meals to be provided Monday to Friday by the Leng Day Care Centre, also in Newport, where the cook was based. Day care clients are receiving hot meals from Cupar but the temporary service has only been extended to nine of the less able 25 Granary Lane tenants who requested it.
Resident Dave Brown, 91, said: “We have been left to our own devices. I think it’s a rotten do that this has gone on for so long.
“If it was advertised, you wouldn’t think there would be a lack of interest in the job, especially with all the programmes about cooking there are on TV.”
He added: “We could have meals-on-wheels but that’s not a starter. There is no real choice, you just get what you are given.”
Tay Bridgehead councillor Tim Brett has stepped in and demanded the service is restored urgently.
He said: “It is now over three months since these residents last received a hot lunch.
“This is causing no little annoyance and frustration to the residents of Granary Lane, who are no longer getting this service.”
Fife Council stressed residents had their own kitchens and those unable to prepare meals had a home care service.
Housing access and support senior manager John Mills said: “Although we’re not required to provide hot meals within sheltered housing complexes, meals were provided to nine of the 25 tenants who requested them by the nearby Leng Day Centre.
“The cook at Leng retired a few months ago and they are currently making arrangements for a new one to start as soon as possible. Until the new cook starts, we offered meals-on-wheels to the tenants that had their lunch at the complex but they refused.”