ALDERSHOT’s library could close one day a week under new county council plans aimed at helping to save nearly £450,000 a year.

The library, which currently opens daily, would be shut on Sundays, reducing its overall opening hours from 52 to 48 each week.

The warning comes as Hampshire County Council launches a public consultation on proposed closures and cuts in opening hours at branches around the county.

In contrast, the library in Farnborough would see no closures or changes to its opening hours and instead would be classed as the borough’s ‘key library’, one of 11 such planned facilities in Hampshire.

Yateley library would lose four hours a week while Odiham would shut on Thursdays. Like Farnborough, Fleet has been identified as a key library.

The proposals are such that almost every other library in the county would be closed at least one day weekly in order to make the service affordable, while the new ‘key libraries’ would attempt to fill the resulting gaps in service.

Keith Chapman, member for culture and recreation, insisted that changes to the system had to be made for library services to be maintained.

He said: “Changes to Hampshire’s library and information service have, so far, been made to get the service functioning as a modern business model. This next round of changes aims to address the wider financial pressures that every service is facing.

“We know how highly our library service is valued but making no changes is not an option.”

Cllr Chapman added: “We have to make the service sustainable, so clear business sense has to prevail to give everyone reasonable access at least cost. This is especially so when you consider we have one instance where the figures show every visit to one of our libraries costs the taxpayer £15 a time.”

There are currently 53 libraries and discovery centres in Hampshire, providing a total of 1,939 hours’ access each week, with the county council proposing 7.5% reduction, equivalent to 145.5 hours.

Hampshire says it needs to make savings of £450,000 ahead of its 2012/13 budget and beyond to cope with financial cuts. This is despite the council having already saved more than £2 million since April 2009 through measures such as cuts in senior management and reviewing library fees, including this year’s reintroduction of late fines for children.

The 90-day consultation, which started on September 27, continues until December 28 with comments and feedback to be considered including when the proposed changes are reviewed in January.

If approved in their current form, the changes and reductions would be put into action with effect from April.

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