South Swindon MP, Anne Snelgrove's support for those who protest the cuts to Swindon's libraries which include Old Town's has been welcome, but it flies in the face of the line taken by the Secretary of State, Andy Burnham, who has just declared that he will not use his powers under the 1964 Libraries Act to call in the decision on the Wirral to close 11 libraries.

Shirley Burnham, campaigner, says "When the Secretary of State sits on the fence in respect of the Wirral, one of the greatest acts of cultural vandalism to be inflicted by a council on libraries in the history of this country, that is a tremendous blow which calls into question both efficacy of the Act and whether the Secretary of State takes his role seriously.

"We are contacting Andy Burnham to request that he scrutinise the Swindon decision and call it in, because it is perceived by some, whether correctly or not, that a breech of democracy could have taken place.  There seems to have been a lack of due process which would, if that were in any detail true, be a serious matter.  People also feel that they have not been properly consulted in Old Town about the closure of their library and the impact of the closures on all the communities concerned has, it seems to us, not been properly, nor formally, assessed."