Community campaigners are waiting to find out whether and when two libraries will reopen again as they close their doors this week.

Oswaldtwistle and Clayton-le-Moors libraries will be mothballed on Friday, September 30 while Lancashire County Council (LCC) considers expressions of interest in transferring them to community hands.

Wendy Sanderson, a member of the LAMP group which has expressed an interest in taking on Oswaldtwistle library, said the closure of the town’s 100-year-old library is upsetting.

She said: “It is D-day for the libraries. Everybody is very upset - we don’t know whether they’re just going to board the library up and leave it derelict.

“It’s dreadful, it’s been there 100 years and now they want to close it and turn it into a blot on the landscape when it’s so important to Oswaldtwistle and the people here who use it.”

Wendy said LAMP is ready to take on the building but claimed they have struggled to open communication with LCC.

She said: “We’re still poised to come in but every time we schedule a meeting they have cancelled it. The whole thing has just been farcical from beginning to end.”

Rishton library is also due to shut before the end of November.

Nick Collingridge, director of Mercer House 1842, had been working to produce a plan to save Clayton and Rishton libraries.

He claimed: “The groups have just been totally kept out of the loop. The council need to remember it’s not just about the buildings, it’s about the people involved.

“My faith in county has evaporated altogether. They are so important for the community, but when the libraries are closed on Friday we don’t know if they’ll ever come back.”

David Borrow, deputy leader of LCC, said the council were being forced to deliver services in a different way due to ongoing cuts in central government funding.

He said: “We will now work with those groups and organisations that have registered their interest in taking on responsibility for some of the buildings which are no longer needed by the council, and I hope this will result in some of those venues continuing to perform a valuable role in serving our communities.”

The council has approved plans to assess the viable business cases put forward in October.