As a former head of libraries in Barnet, I attended the extraordinary meeting and subsequent full council meeting last week to hear what might be the fate of our much-loved library service.

A near defeat of an amendment by the current administration by virtue of an accidental mayoral casting vote led to mayhem as the vote was rectified amid vociferous protest.

The crux for me though came when the petition of nearly 10,000 signatures asking the council to think again, was ably presented by Alasdair Hill. He effectively encapsulated the ongoing importance of libraries to everyone in Barnet, from the youngest to the oldest, and countered the ridiculous assumption that an average 540 sq feet is an adequate size to accommodate a 21st Century library service in ten of our 14 council-run libraries.

Councillor Wendy Prentice asked the inevitable between a rock and a hard place question of where else the money would come from but completely missed the point that libraries cost a fraction of the overall council budget, punch well above their weight in terms of effectiveness and social impact and are being asked to take a massive share of the cuts. The scale of the proposed cuts are devastating, decimation comes nowhere near.

Everyone knows that we are living in hard times and difficult choices have to be made, but libraries are and will be needed more than ever and should only be required to take a more realistic share of the burden. The council has a fight on its hands that has only just begun.

Patricia Little

Sutton Road, Muswell Hill