CAMPAIGNERS have pledged to fight the proposed closure of 20 Libraries across Dorset.

They say the ‘blow’ to communities will hit the county’s old and young the hardest.

It comes as county councillors try to meet a £800,000 savings target for the 2011/12 library service budget.

A report, which will go before the community overview committee on Thursday, recommends the council should pull funding from 20 of its 34 libraries.

If given the go-ahead, it will then go before cabinet members on February 2, before a final decision is made by full council on February 17.

Libraries at risk include Wyke Regis, Chickerell, Littlemoor, Portland Tophill, Portland Underhill, Puddletown, Crossways, Beaminster, Burton Bradstock, Charmouth, Lyme Regis and Wool.

This would leave four main libraries open, including Weymouth and Dorchester, 10 town libraries including Bridport, Shaftesbury, Sherborne, Swanage, Wareham and Blandford, and the provision of mobile library services and online services.

As part of the £800,000 savings, the council proposes to save £417,300 by offering the buildings to communities to take over and to save £143,000 on books and materials.

Mike Chaney, chairman of the Friends of Puddletown Library group and spokesman for the newly-formed Association of Friends of Dorset Libraries (Ad Lib) said a delegation would be attending Thursday’s meeting to oppose the plans.

He said: “We’re concerned for general cultural and literature reasons – libraries are part of English heritage – and for particular, smaller reasons because in villages like Puddletown, they serve very important social purposes.

“The idea you get shushed when you go into libraries, those days are completely gone, there’s young children running about and older people sitting and chatting.

“It would be a great shame if that aspect of village life was lost.”

He added: “It seems pretty obvious that once the facility is gone that’s the end of the library – we won’t be able to open it again in five year’s time. It seems to be a permanent answer to a temporary problem.”

County councillor Les Ames, of Tophill, Portland, said it was ‘morally wrong’ to leave the island’s 14,000 people without a library.

He said: “We shall be fighting as hard as we can to keep Portland Tophill library open because without it, it’s eight miles to the nearest library.

“I shall be doing my level best to argue against it at the committee meeting on January 20.

“There’s a need for the children to have somewhere to go.

“In the last few years it’s been redesigned and is now very, very efficient.

“It’s as smart and busy as any other library of comparable size in the county, there’s a moral right to keep it open.

“I’m working to find an alternative site should it be necessary. I hope it won’t be.”

Coun Ames also opposed plans to replace librarians with volunteers and added: “You can’t guarantee they will be here like a person employed would be.”

Mum-of-one Gemma Deadman, 29, of Easton, said: “I use the Tophill library at least once a week.

“We’ve got a car so we could go to Weymouth but it would be an inconvenience because we can walk to the local library.

“My daughter Abigail loves to sit and choose books in the children’s section. A lot of the older generation use it, so do school children and teenagers – the computers are always booked up.”

Beaminster library co-ordinator Elaine Bibby said county council involvement was vital to run the service.

She said volunteers stepped in to help save the facility when the county council threatened to cut 13 of its libraries more than four years ago, but council support was needed to cover building rent of almost £5,000 a year.

She added: “Computer access in the library building and the self-service counters will go because there would be no formal link.

“The books are rotated every six weeks now and all of that would go I imagine because if they could keep that going then why can’t they keep the library going?

“You will end up just with a building with some books in it.”