PEOPLE in Beaminster have vowed to dig their heels in and fight to keep their library open.

Two years ago when it was last threatened with closure the community stepped in and it now has more volunteers than any other library in the county.

Dorset County Councillor Rebecca Knox told a Beaminster Town Council meeting that the county’s community overview committee wanted to have time to explore the potential for savings to town libraries that could help keep rural ones open.

She said that they now had from March to May to come up with a business plan to save Beaminster Library, with the final decision being taken in July.

She said: “We can make a good case geographically and economically for a library in Beaminster.”

The case is helped by the fact that the library has the second highest percentage increase in the number of book issues in the whole county, serves a population within an eight-mile radius and would help support shops in the town.

The town supports nine reading groups – four in the WI alone – and Angela Seckington of the WI presented a 75-signature petition to the town council. She said: “For some, if libraries closed, they won’t find it easy to get to Bridport.”

She added the county council had a moral obligation to cancel its multi-million pound new Dorchester library.

A petition against the closure will be discussed at full council on February 17