Liberal Democrat County Councillors have expressed their anger at the cuts being made to the libraries resources budget as the Conservative County Council was forced to reveal cuts of £346,000 to this budget over the next two years.

The County Council’s Conservative administration plans to reduce the county’s library resources budget, used to buy items such as books and DVDs, by £346,000 – a cut of 22% – by 2019.

This reduction follows on from significant cuts in the amount of library stock owned by the county council, which has dropped from 1,597,830 items in December 2013 to 1,386,752 items in March 2016 – a reduction of 211,078 items.

The £346,000 cut was buried in the confidential section of council papers that was discussed at the County Council’s Cabinet. Liberal Democrat County Councillors objected to this excessive secrecy and successfully argued for the information on the cuts to library resources to be placed in the public part of the council papers so that residents could find out what was happening to their libraries.