COMMUNITY leaders are being urged to save Wallingford Youth Centre and libraries threatened with closure.

Oxfordshire County Council has proposed an end to funding for the centre in the town’s Clapcot Way and another youth centre run at the Scout Hut in Wallingford Road, Cholsey.

Berinsfield, Benson and Woodcote village libraries would also lose cash under the cuts.

The county council has called on volunteers to run the centres as it prepares to strip funding from 20 out of 43 county libraries and 20 youth centres.

Instead, seven youth “hubs” would provide youth services around the county, including sites in Abingdon and Didcot.

There will be £4.2m of cuts to youth services and £2m of cuts to libraries over four years as the council tries to find £155m of savings by 2015.

The council will make £200,000 available to help volunteers take over services.

It is the latest blow for Wallingford Youth Centre. In September, it emerged a new £1.2m rebuild would not go ahead because of Government cuts.

Wallingford Independent county councillor Lynda Atkins called for volunteers to take over running the facilities. She said: “The people of Wallingford are brilliant, so I am confident that they will rally round to try to save these community facilities.

“But we need to look and see how possible it would be for volunteers to come in and take over in the ‘Big Society’ way that is being talked about by the Government.

“It is very disappointing news about the youth centre after people worked so hard earlier this year to get funding for it but unfortunately that didn’t happen.”

Youth centre user Naomi Higgins, 16, of Clapcot Way, said: “This is a small town, it is it the only place for young people here.

“I cannot see that there are many community groups that would have enough volunteers to run many of these places.

“I’m not convinced by the council’s proposal to run youth service hubs. Didcot is just down the road, but if you are a young person and don’t have a car then getting there and back is difficult because there are no bus services in weekday evenings.”

Up to 30 young people, aged ten to 19, use the youth club from Monday to Friday.

Wallingford North district councillor Imran Lokhon hit out at the libraries cut.

He said: “If libraries are closed in small communities then people will have to travel elsewhere and that damages community spirit.

“Places like Berinsfield really need their local library.”

The move echoes a previous funding cut to Cholsey library, which last month led to villagers setting up a volunteer-run service.

County council leader Keith Mitchell said: “This will lead to a reduction in services across the county.” Yet, he said there was a “national crisis” over public spending and warned: “I fear petitions and protests will not be effective.”

The number of redundancies in both services has not been revealed, but 1,000 job losses are expected across the authority.

The proposals could change when council cash settlements are announced later this month.