The Head of Cambridgeshire County Council s Library and Information Service Lesley Noblett has sent her congratulations to a group of Somersham volunteers after it was announced they are to receive a royal accolade. The volunteers are the backbone of the

The Head of Cambridgeshire County Council's Library and Information Service Lesley Noblett has sent her congratulations to a group of Somersham volunteers after it was announced they are to receive a royal accolade.

The volunteers are the backbone of the Somersham Community Information Centre which is a community run Library Access Point in the village - and the group has now discovered it is to receive a 2007 Queen's Award for Volunteers.

The award will be officially handed over by the Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, who will present a certificate from Her Majesty The Queen during a special event at the Centre on July 21. The ceremony starts at 11.00 am.

A representative group of volunteers will also travel to Buckingham Palace in July after being invited to attend a Royal garden party.

Lesley Noblett, said she was delighted that the dedication and commitment of the Somersham team had won Royal recognition.

She added: "It is a real mark of all the hard work that the whole team at Somersham has put in - the professional way that they have organised themselves and the commitment shown by everyone. I am so pleased for them - being awarded a 2007 Queens Award for Volunteers is really well deserved."

Julie Liddle from The Friends of Somersham Library, said: "We are really honoured to have been selected. It is a real pat on the back for all of our volunteers who work so very hard and we are very proud of our achievement."

Cambridgeshire County Council closed ten under-used local libraries and worked in partnership with local communities to create a chain of Library Access Points run by local volunteers with support from the County Council.

Since their creation in 2004, the Cambridgeshire LAPs have attracted interest from local authority library services and communities around the country, which were looking to modernise or reform their services.