MACHYNLLETH’S library will not close, county council chiefs have assured the town council.

Powys County Council is looking to relocate the Maengwyn Street library, and officers met with the clerk Izzy Lumley and the mayor Cllr Tony Jones to inspect Y Plas as a potential alternative location.

Ms Lumley, addressing the last full council meeting, said: “We had a meeting with two people from Powys County Council about the library. They assured us this was one of the libraries in Powys which was safe and that closure was not an option. They were quite negative about the space we suggested at the back of the Plas which is rarely used.

“We haven’t heard back from them, but it has got so much going for it.”

Last year there were concerns from town councillors that the library and other services in the town could be scrapped to provide funding for a controversial traveller site on the edge of Machynlleth.

But Cllr Wynne Jones, the Powys Cabinet member for finance, called the claims “deliberate scaremongering” and insisted there was no threat to services to provide funding for the site.

He said: “To suggest that the site, which will accommodate families with a long association in the town, will impact on vital services in the community is little more than deliberate scaremongering.”

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