On Saturday 24th March over 40 potential community volunteers attended a meeting at Warlingham Library. Warlingham is one of ten Surrey libraries planned to be launched as a 'community library' to avoid closure. At the meeting it was agreed that Surrey County Council ('SCC') would put together a training programme for the volunteers and would commence training as soon as possible. However, the process has been delayed due to a technical challenge brought late last year in respect of the Equality Act 2010. Mr Justice Wilkie upheld the challenge and on 20th February a judicial review commenced of the council's plans.

On 24th April SCC announced that it will take a decision on its libraries plan again at a Cabinet meeting on 19th June following completion of the judicial review. It will consider all the work that has been done to develop a comprehensive training package for volunteers.

Helyn Clack, Surrey County Council's Cabinet Member for Community Services and the 2012 Games, said: "Our aim all along has been to keep all 52 of Surrey's libraries open while elsewhere in the country branches are closing. Allowing communities to run libraries enables us to do this and it is still the council's policy.

Although the council had done a lot of work to develop equalities training, the High Court ruled there should have been more detail in the Cabinet's papers about it at the meeting last September, so we are going to take the decision again, with all the information we need about volunteer training.

"A huge amount of work has already gone into ensuring volunteers are properly trained to help all library users. I'm certain that this training would enable volunteers to provide an excellent service. There are a lot of people eager to begin running their local library."

A spokesperson for Warlingham Library said: "I am pleased to say that Warlingham's model overcomes many of the objections, particularly as we will be engaging a professional librarian and Surrey will supplement this with an additional 20% of opening hours from their professional team. The volunteer team is looking forward to helping Warlingham achieve a thriving library and will seek to broaden the range of activities held at the library."