FRESH hope has been given to Dorset’s nine threatened Libraries after Dorset County Council agreed to have a second vote on the future of the service.

Leader of the Liberal Democrat group of councillors Janet Dover has overseen a campaign to get the issue back on the agenda at the full council meeting on November 10.

Coun Dover has used council procedures that allow the vote to be retaken after she submitted an application signed by ten fellow councillors, all members of her party.

In July, at a meeting of the full council members, a proposal to withdraw core funding to nine of the county’s 34 libraries was passed by a single vote. The libraries at Burton Bradstock, Charmouth, Chickerell, Corfe Castle, Colehill, Portland Underhilll, Puddletown, Stalbridge and Wool all face being removed from the council network next year and it will be up to the communities to take over the running of the facilities if they are to remain open.

However, they have now been given another chance if the decision can be overturned at the council meeting next month.

Coun Dover said: “The public have been asking about the possibility of a second vote ever since the first was lost by one vote and they believe the importance of the library service in Dorset wasn’t recognised.

“This gives an opportunity for those councillors who did not vote for option D (retaining funding to all 34 libraries) to think again.”

Coun Dover added that she had worked out the cost of transferring the running of the nine libraries would cancel out any savings.

She added that she would be asking council leader Angus Campbell for the vote at the meeting to be a free vote and a recorded vote. Chairman of the Ad Lib (Association of the Friends of Dorset Libraries) campaign group Graham Lee welcomed the news.

He said: “It is welcome that they are going to have another look at it.

“We have been quietly trying to persuade various county council members that the decision was so close there was a need to look at it again and we hope that common sense will prevail.”

Chief executive of Dorset County Council David Jenkins confirmed the decision on the libraries will be reconsidered.

He said: “I can confirm that I have today received a notice of motion signed by ten members of the county council. The motion asks that the decision made by councillors at their last meeting on July 21 about the Dorset Library Service should be rescinded, and that ‘option D,’ set out in reports to that meeting, should instead be adopted.”

How the chapters unfolded

Library campaigners fought a long and hard battle after it emerged in January that Dorset County Council was proposing to withdraw funding from 20 libraries in a bid to save £800,000.

Groups from across the county joined forces to form the Ad Lib group and campaign for the retention of all 34 libraries.

Within weeks Ad Lib presented a petition signed by 13,000 people.

The council put forward a compromise in June, when it suggested withdrawing funding to ten rather than 20 libraries.

That was further reduced to nine when members agreed to retain funding for West Moors library.

Ad Lib still claimed the savings could be made, but at the council meeting in July, members voted by 21 votes to 20 to withdraw funding from nine libraries.