If, as Councillor Coatsworth made clear at the DCC meeting on the future of the nine Dorset Libraries on July 21, councillors were issued before this meeting with a highly slanted summary of the research questionnaires completed by thousands of members of the public, then a proper, balanced and fair summary must now be freshly prepared and re-circulated, and the results of the last wrongly-informed meeting set aside.

To avoid a fiasco, the debate must then be re-run, using true and balanced information on which councillors can make their objective judgement with confidence Not to provide balanced information for councillors and to re-run this meeting would also be in contravention of the spirit of the words we heard and stood for in the prayer from the chairman at the start of proceedings.

No one should be cowed by the events of July 21 – we should demand a re-run and harness the way this event is already acting as an alarm bell for many who have known what is going on but have not yet spoken out or acted publicly.

Simultaneously WDDC and DCC are trying to push ahead to spend an overall £20million of our money (including park and ride) on an un-needed new library in Dorchester, and new offices for council staff in Charles Street (when only 156 residents of Dorchester voted for this in the official Dorchester town poll, and 13 times as many voted against).

This should be stopped, pending the current KPMG external auditor Investigation All in West Dorset and Dorset currently dismayed by the level of true democratic processes here can take comfort from bearing in mind that – providing we keep to a clear and open path – there’s no expiry date on democracy.

John Grantham, Burton Bradstock