CHIPPING Sodbury Library users are urged to have their say on council cuts at a drop-in session today.

The under threat library is hosting an event on plans to close it from 9.30am until 1pm.

More than 250 people have signed a petition to save the facility, on High Street, which is earmarked for closure under a savings programme at South Gloucestershire Council.

Last month the authority launched a consultation on all its libraries to save between £500,000 and £600,000. All three options involve closing Chipping Sodbury Library which the council says does not have enough unique users, with many also accessing at the bigger Yate Library less than one mile away, to warrant its £42,000 annual costs.

Long-term library campaigner Sodbury town councillor Wendy Whittle, who has previously saved the service from cuts, is adding her voice to the campaign to keep the facility open.

“It is a meeting place for local people as well as a library,” she said. “It is really friendly and people use it for computer access and events for young children as well as the books. Many of the residents at the new McCarthy and Stone elderly people’s complex use the library and for them to go to Yate and carry lots of heavy books back on the bus is just not practical.

“Our library is used and can be quite full and to close it will be a real loss, especially with all the additional houses being built in Chipping Sodbury.”