VOLUNTEERS are being sought to run a village library to help a council find more money to improve the county's roads, a senior councillor has said.

Bourne End library is set to follow the lead of other facilities around the county with control being handed over to community groups from Buckinghamshire County Council.

The authority's deputy leader Mike Appleyard said the move was to help the council plug a funding gap in other areas - saying more money was needed to improve the roads in Bucks.

And he said staff currently employed full time at the library wouldn't stay on a like-for-like basis, saying new staff would consist of volunteers and part time workers.

Cllr Appleyard, who is Bourne End's ward councillor for the county, was speaking at a Future of Our Village Forum on Thursday night.

He told villagers: "Over the years in other previous transfers, the staff have left and a whole batch of new volunteers have joined the library and they run it.

"In the case of Bourne End, as staff leave they won't be replaced as permanent staff. There will be a search for volunteers prepared to take their place.

"It's simply a response to the fact that, in order to keep our taxes down, we are having to economise very heavily. Over the last eight years very little money has been put into the roads, with the effect the roads have got into a terrible state - meaning we have to do double somersaults to find the money to put into the roads."

Cllr Appleyard added there had been a slight increase in the use of the library recently but the number of items borrowed had dropped from 90,000 per year a decade ago to 70,000.

He said: "We are at the stage where demand is dropping. We have to respond to that in some way."