AS a member of the Friends of Colehill Library, I am at a loss as to why at every council meeting there seem such determination to close what figures show to be a thriving library.

We have now almost reached the point of desperation – asking ourselves what more we can do when we have produced figures to show that we are one of the most successful libraries in the area. I want to emphasise what the loss of our library would mean to our children. Parents go to great lengths to improve their children’s chances in life: they change schools, they move house, they hire tutors, they deprive themselves financially. The most effective thing of all is to take them to the library.

Colehill Library is within walking distance for hundreds of young families. It is also within walking distance of five schools. Colehill First School neighbours the library and uses it weekly as a teaching resource.

With a population at Colehill of over 7,000, many of them young families with two and three children, getting to Wimborne Library would be extremely costly and a logistical nightmare.

These are the low and middle income families who are feeling the economic pinch but understand the need for their children to read and who are subsequently turning to the libraries in increasing numbers.

Visit our library at the end of the school day and you will see it as a happy, child-centred place.

A library with enjoyable activities organised by the two librarians who have received awards for their contributions to the community.

Colehill Library is top of the county “child issue table” with a magnificent 37.5 per cent of its total book issue going to children. Is this not something to be proud of?

At a time when further education is becoming increasingly unaffordable, why are we denying our younger generation the opportunity for self-education and the life enrichment offered by the reading habit?

Councillors and officers, at your final decision making meetings, remind yourselves of the report by Unesco which states that reading for pleasure is the single best indicator of future social mobility. And please think very carefully before you consign Colehill Library to the scrap heap.

VAL SEDDON, committee member, Friends of Colehill Library, Cannon Hill Road, Colehill