20th July 2011

BRIDPORT: County to vote on future of libraries

By Tom Glover

Campaigners are urging councillors to “vote with their hearts” when the future of Dorset’s libraries are decided tomorrow (Thursday) by county councillors.

Dorset County Council will consider four possible money saving solutions at the meeting but they all will either see core libraries, including Bridport, cut their services to save fringe libraries, or see rural libraries handed over to the community to run or being lost entirely.

Boost

Beaminster, Burton Bradstock and Charmouth are two of the rural libraries whose futures will be decided at the meeting.

The hopes of supporters of Ad Lib, the group campaigning to save all Dorset’s libraries, have been given a boost by the news that Conservative members of the council will vote individually rather than as a party at the meeting.

“We are hugely encouraged by the news that there will be a free vote,” said Graham Lee, Ad Lib’s chairman. “We have known throughout this long fight that several Conservative councillors are unhappy about the loss of these smaller libraries. They didn’t want the county’s library service to put all its eggs into the basket of the bigger town’s libraries.

“Now we know they’ll be able to follow their consciences and vote with their hearts we hope we can save the threatened libraries.”

Two Ad Lib speakers will address the full council at the meeting in Dorchester, to try to convince them that there is no need to follow the advice of the libraries’ managers, who argue that to continue to fund all 34 libraries in Dorset is unsustainable.

Liz Callister, who heads the friends group at Crossways library, will stress to councillors the cultural, social and economic damage that the loss of a full library service will mean to the nine communities facing the axe.

Mike Chaney, of Puddletown friends, will point out that a panel of their own members has worked out a way in which all nine can be saved at no extra cost - and that fewer jobs would be lost if that option is chosen.

Supporters of Ad Lib from all over Dorset will be gathering at County Hall to try to convince councillors arriving for the debate to save all the libraries.

BRIDPORT: County to vote on future of libraries

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