A High Court judge has revoked Surrey County Council’s decision to hand over the running of 10 libraries to volunteers.

Mr Justice Wilkie made a court order on Wednesday, May 2, to stop paid workers being removed from libraries and replaced with volunteers.

Last month, Mr Justice Wilkie upheld a challenge to the decision, but did not criticise the policy itself.

He concluded the decision was unlawful because the cabinet had not been made aware of, or given sufficient regard to, how removing paid staff would affect the use of the libraries by protected groups such as children, the disabled and the elderly under the Equality Act 2010.

The council had already said it would consult on equalities training and look at the decision again in June Surrey Libraries Action Movement (Slam), which has campaigned against the council’s plans, welcomed the judgement and urged the council to scrap the plan entirely.

But Councillor Helyn Clack, cabinet member for community services, said: “A lot of work has already gone into making sure community library volunteers receive the training they need to help people with disabilities and other special needs.

“I’d urge people to give us their views in this latest consultation so we can further enhance the training package we have created.

“We want everyone to enjoy using Surrey’s libraries. Our aim all along has been to keep all 52 branches open and allowing communities to run libraries would enable us to this.”

The council will reconsider the libraries plans at a cabinet meeting on June 19.

It will look at the work that has been done to develop a comprehensive training package for volunteers and will begin a consultation to ask users of the 10 libraries what equalities training they thought should be provided for volunteers.

Slam spokesman Lee Godfrey, said: “The county council put a gun to the head of local people over this policy: ‘run your library for free or we will close it’.

“It is good news that the High Court has finally put a stop to that nonsense.

“We wait to hear from the council after this latest court order, but any attempt to continue with the policy would be an affront to decency and the law.

“The council has spent a fortune on these library plans for no benefit - it’s now to time to cut its losses and not waste any more taxpayers’ money on the folly.”