A petition with more than 7,000 signatures against the closure of Lowestoft Record Office will be presented to the county council tomorrow.

Trudie Jackson and Janis Kirby, co-founders of SORO - Save Our Record Office - will be presenting the petition at a full meeting of Suffolk County Council at their headquarters in Ipswich.

It follows a decision by the county council, announced back in January, to replace the record office based at Lowestoft library with an unmanned access point by the end of 2019 and move the archives currently stored there into a multi-million pound facility in Ipswich.

SORO has been fighting against the decision ever since, and in February the county council announced a public consultation would be held, which is due to begin shortly.

Mrs Jackson said: 'We object to the proposed closure of the Lowestoft Record Office. This valuable resource of local history material is being removed from its area of greatest relevance, thus depriving residents of part of their local heritage.'

After receiving the petition and inviting comments from each of the opposition groups, the council's chairman will ask the cabinet member for health, Tony Goldson, to respond to the petition on behalf of the council.

The county council said changes need to be made at the record office as the current conditions in the Lowestoft basement strongroom do not meet the new National Archive standards. It also said that the basement location means that it is at risk of flooding.

The meeting will be webcast live on the Suffolk County Council website.