Leaders at Somerset County Council have been urged to have an 11th-hour rethink on the future of public libraries threatened with closure, including those in Wellington and Wiveliscombe.

The call came from one of Wellington’s two county councillors, John Thorne, a month before recommendations on the future shape of Somerset’s library service are set to be published.

Wellington and Wiveliscombe are among 15 libraries which could be closed and replaced with mobile or outreach services if communities do not take them over in partnership with the council.

Cllr Thorne, who is also a Wellington town councillor, said: “I have been pushing at every opportunity to make sure we keep as many libraries open as possible and that we improve on what I consider to be a completely inadequate £5,000 grant offer for communities to take them on.

“I have also suggested that before any final decisions are taken we should look again at allowing a charitable trust to run the libraries.

“Last autumn, I was one of the councillors who recommended libraries should be kept in-house and ‘externalisation’ should not be looked at again before 2020.

“But since then I have come to realise we were victims of a ‘sleight of hand’ because the implications of the decision were not made clear at the time.

“We were dissuaded from going down the externalisation route by a very scary officer’s report highlighting the doubts and risks of doing so.

“So, we thought we were safeguarding the future of our libraries by agreeing to redesign the service and work with local communities to keep them open.

“But it turns out we were doing no such thing, and we were instead approving plans to threaten nearly half our libraries with closure.

“Nobody told us back in October that ‘community library partnerships’ meant offering communities £5,000 to take over their libraries and if they did not accept, then they would close and be replaced with mobile or outreach sessions.

“Had it been properly spelled out, then I believe councillors may instead have gone down the route that a number of other counties have already taken and given a charitable trust an opportunity to try to keep the libraries open.”

Cllr Thorne said he believed Wellington’s library in particular had an overwhelming case for being kept open due to the high numbers of people who used it every week and its importance as a community hub.

“I have been inundated with messages of support for my campaign to save the library and I hope the decision makers at County Hall will listen carefully to the arguments I have put,” he said.

One campaign supporter, Wellington town councillor Wayne Battishill, said: “Although I have only just been elected to the council, I have already made clear my unequivocal backing for keeping the library open.

“My family and I have been using the library ever since we moved to Wellington and I have seen there are so many drop-in sessions for all ages every week that it would be devastating for the town to lose it.”