THE campaign to save eight small libraries threatened with closure by Buckinghamshire County Council is gaining strength.

Public meetings are being held in all the areas concerned and at last Thursday's meeting of the council protest petitions were presented to chairman Margaret Aston.

During a lengthy period of tough questions to Cllr Margaret Dewar, the cabinet member responsible, most councillors with a threatened library in their patch asked why a rural service should be cut and the figures used to justify the cut.

They pointed out many times that council policy was to get closer to communities and this was not the way to go about it.

They asked the cabinet to look for new ways of keeping the libraries open, including using volunteer helpers and getting people to donate books.

Tony and Elaine Hoare, from Chalfont St Giles, and Richard Butterworth, chairman of the Friends of Chalfont St Giles Library, were at the council meeting and told the Free Press that the same thing had been tried six years ago and the council had backed down.

Mr Butterworth said the library was useful to him because he could borrow books in large print, and that older people and children would be the most affected.

Mr Hoare said the proposed alternative, a mobile library, would visit the village for six hours a week, whereas the library was open for 20.

He foresaw the eventual disappearance of the mobile library.

"If you reduce the hours, you reduce library use and we shall be here again in a few years' time."

Martin Tett, councillor for the Chalfonts and Seer Green, said: "If we want people to use libraries we have a responsibility to make sure they are open when people need them."

Pam Bacon, his colleague in the same ward, said Chalfont St Giles had very few transport links with anywhere and asked why the first reaction was cuts in services rather than using lateral thinking to come up with ways of keeping libraries open.

"Rural libraries are the last ones that should be closed," she said. People used them as community centres and browsed through the books. But these things were not taken into account in the statistics, which only looked at borrowing.

Bill Lidgate, Alderbourne member, said Iver library was in a complex that included the school and the village hall. What could it be used for if it closed, he asked.

Julia Wassell, heading the fight in Micklefield, said people there wanted a new library and were determined to build it themselves.

Cllr Dewar said this could be the way forward.