LIBRARIES: Surrey Lib Dems call for Cabinet to scrap plans following vote

A call-in meeting of Surrey County Council's 'Safer and Stronger Communities' Select Committee has decided to ask the Council's Conservative Cabinet to look again at proposals to ask local communites to run 11 branch libraries or else they will closed, as the first stage in reducing the library network to a core service and to end the mobile library service.

Following this decision, Hazel Watson, the Liberal Democrat Leader on Surrey County Council said:

"The decision to ask the Conservative Cabinet to look again at their proposalsis excellent news. These proposals are disastrous for those communities served by the 11 branch libraries and the mobile library service, as well as those libraries that would face similar threats of closure further down the line."

"These library services are particularly used by young families, the elderly, the disabled and those without cars. The Conservative Cabinet should now completely scrap the plans, which would only save very small amounts of money, and instead put Surrey's communities and local residents first"

The decision taken at the Safer and Stronger Communities call in meeting to ask the Cabinet to look again at the proposals by a vote of 5 to 4 will now be discussed at the Cabinet Meeting on 1 March.