ALAN BENNETT has championed the "indispensable" role of publicly funded libraries as a vital community service.

The author, who has previously likened library closures to "child abuse," told the Cheltenham Literature Festival on Sunday: "Libraries, like hospitals, like public transport, should come out of the rates. They are, or should be, a community service."

Nearly 500 libraries have closed across Britain since 2010, according to the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, but campaigners suggest the figure goes above 800.

Mr Bennett’s comments came as he presented the new David Vaisey Prize for libraries in Gloucestershire — named after the former head of the Bodleian Library at Oxford university who dedicated his life to libraries.

The prize went to Bream Community Library in the Forest of Dean, with volunteer James Robertson collecting the £5,000 prize.

Mr Bennett said of his old Oxford university friend Mr Vaisey: "We were on a full grant which, though not munificent, was adequate. One notion that we have lost in David's and my lifetime is of the state as nurturer.

"For both of us, the state was a saviour delivering us out of poverty and putting us on the road to a better life."

Fierce debate has grown around volunteer-run libraries, with 8,000 library jobs being cut over the last seven years and 15,000 volunteers recruited.

Library worker and campaigner Alan Wylie recently said: "The term 'community library' has been hijacked, purloined by those who seek to pull the wool over people's eyes regarding library cuts.

"All part of an undemocratic, unaccountable and unsustainable ploy, an ideological agenda."