COUNCILLORS will consider two options for the future of Dorset’s library service, with the threat of closure still hanging over nine libraries.

A final decision on the future of the service will be made at a meeting of Dorset County Council on July 21, with members asked to consider withdrawing funding from nine of its network of 34 libraries.

However, library campaigners were given hope as the council’s cabinet also put forward an option to keep all 34 libraries open, with the authority’s £800,000 savings target met through other means such as reduction of the book fund and staff.

The nine libraries that could lose funding as a result of the decision are Burton Bradstock, Charmouth, Chickerell, Colehill, Corfe Castle, Portland Underhill, Puddletown, Stalbridge and Wool.

It would mean Beaminster and Lyme Regis being saved from the axe.

West Moors had been on a list of 10 threatened libraries but cabinet members agreed to add it to the list of libraries that would be retained under the proposal.

Director of adult and community services Debbie Ward said that under the proposal those communities whose libraries that lost council funding would be offered the chance to take on the running of the service.

She said these communities would continue to receive support from the county council so even the more rural libraries would be in a position to take on the facility.

Mrs Ward said: “We are currently looking at what additional support can be provided to those communities where they have not got the framework and established mechanisms in place. It is challenging but there is a very clear and workable offer.”

Mrs Ward said the alternative proposal, favoured by campaign group Ad Lib (the Association of Friends of Dorset Libraries), to retain funding to all 34 libraries and make cuts across the service included reducing the book fund to £434,400.

She said this was nearly £100,000 below the fund proposed in the first option and the figure council officers believed was appropriate in their ‘professional assessment’.

Cabinet member for community services Hilary Cox said: “It is very clear that going forward we must do our best to future-proof the service.”