Sir – We would like to thank The Oxford Times for highlighting the issue of the threat to our libraries.

The poll conducted on your website upholds our opinion that volunteers cannot run a modern library system.

Volunteers should support libraries as a key community asset particularly for the young, frail and disabled. Being popular with the whole population, they are a place we can meet that is truly inclusive.

Councillor Mitchell appears to justify the brutal destruction of 20 libraries on the grounds of absolute numbers. Aah statistics . . . But if you take into account that Kennington is only open 14 hours per week, the picture appears in a different light.

Relating those figures to the number of staff employed, you may discover that one librarian in our small library serves as many per hour as one in a large library. We had 13,062 visits last year which is approximately 18 per hour.

A council that claims to support a policy of localism should be supporting its local libraries not closing them. It is patently unfair. Twenty-five per cent cuts across all the library services, as in Hertfordshire, is understandable but closing a library means 100 per cent cut for our community of readers. What have the taxpayers in the 20 districts affected done to deserve such unfair treatment?

In the ethos of the big society, taxpayer-supported banks, who caused this situation, could be approached by Oxfordshire County Council to make a contribution to reduce some of that 25 per cent cut. The cost of running a library like Kennington’s is approximately £19,000 per annum.

It would help if the campaigns for all 20 threatened libraries could liaise. Kennington Parish Council intends to contact other affected parish councils. Other support groups can contact us on vettasylvia@aol.com

Diane Cox, Halcyon Leonard, Robin Mason, Emma Newcome and Sylvia Vetta

On behalf of the Friends of Kennington Library