The leader of Winchester City Council has hit back over claims that inspection goals for "high risk" eating places are not being achieved.

Liberal Democrat, Sheila Campbell, has insisted the target to inspect 100% of premises every 12 months will be met.

She added that she felt "confident" to eat out anywhere in the Winchester district.

The fears over food hygiene had been raised by Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for Winchester, George Hollingbery.

He said: "I do not want to paint a catastrophic picture of food hygiene, but if the council designates outlets as 'high-risk' they must be inspected."

Council figures cited by Mr Hollingbery suggest only 61% of "high risk" eating places have been assessed in 2002.

Mrs Campbell agrees with the 61% figure, but says it applies to the first half of the financial year from April to the end of September.

In response, Mr Hollingbery said council reports implied only 61% of scheduled inspections had been made during this period, and not the whole financial year.

He added: "The council may use statistics to argue it can catch up, but I'd like inspections to be carried out on time."

He believes the Liberal Democrat administration is wasting money and leaving services like public health under-funded.

He said: "The departments are working flat out to try and keep up but they clearly haven't got enough staff to do the job properly.

"In an area like food inspection where failure to keep up poses a real threat to public health, simply making a report to a committee will not do."

Mrs Campbell assured the Chronicle that inspection targets had been achieved last year, and would be again.

Last year the council hired private contractors to reduce the workload when an inspector was on maternity leave.

Mrs Campbell says it is difficult to recruit new inspectors because of a national shortage. Government plans to redistribute cash from councils in southern England to the north made matters worse.

She said: "We'd have to fund the additional staff by cutting other services or putting up the council tax."

Mrs Campbell added that all "high risk" food outlets were being inspected every 12 months and cases of food poisoning were falling.