WITH the deadline to comment on the future of Hampshire’s libraries looming, Whitehill and Bordon residents are being urged to have their say.

Hampshire County Council launched a consultation in November asking for feedback on its plans to “transform and modernise” how it runs libraries across the county.

Also, on the agenda in the future is a plan to move Bordon Library to the new town centre.

The draft library strategy aims to make alterations to the service to “meet the changing needs of people in the 21st Century” and “develop a sustainable and vibrant library service for people who live, work and study in Hampshire”.

The county council runs one of the largest library services in England, with 48 libraries and an increasingly busy online service, as well as mobile and home services. The draft strategy proposes a number of changes, to be implemented over the next four years:

* Place all libraries into appropriate tiers to provide a standardised approach to services;

* Invest £500,000 every year, for four years, from the £2m Book Fund, making best use of new technology and digital systems;

* Permanently reduce the Book Fund by £500,000 from 2020 onwards;

* Ditch the “costly” mobile library service and investigate alternatives;

* Increase the use of trained volunteers to support the work of paid library staff;

* Rebrand Hampshire’s busiest libraries as discovery centres;

* Share library buildings with partner organisations for several services to be accessed in one visit; and

* Phase a withdrawal of poorly-used items (CDs, games, DVDs) and transfer other specialist collections to other providers.

Hampshire libraries are currently rated in tiers. Tier one (key status) is awarded to the biggest with the busiest public and community spaces and the widest range of services. Tier one libraries are open six days a week, including Saturdays and some evenings, with tier-two libraries open five days a week, including Saturdays which, in Bordon’s case, means that it is closed on Wednesdays as well as Sundays.

Bordon Library saw 63,377 visits between 2014-2015 and, with 3,032 active members, nine per cent of the catchment area’s population, it is proportionately less used than neighbouring Alton’s library, which saw 137,999 visits between 2014-2015 and has 14 per cent of its population classed as active members.

But what Bordon library does better is community events, hosting 71 a year, higher than Alton’s 41.

East Hampshire’s tier one library Peterfield saw 239,048 visits between 2014-2015 and has 14 per cent of the population classed as active members.

The strategy also addresses plans to relocate a number of libraries, with Bordon’s listed as a priority.

Hampshire County Council hopes to find a “more suitable, affordable accommodation” for Bordon library, but insists there will be further consultation before “any significant changes” to location are made. It is likely to be incorporated into the regeneration plans and could end up situated in the new town centre at Prince Philip Barracks.

Another key change is scrapping the mobile library service, operated by five vehicles making more than 250 stops, mainly serving Hampshire’s rural communities and including locally, according to the county council’s website, Lindford and Greatham.

The mobile-library vehicles are nearing the end of their 10-year leases and are “increasingly unreliable”.

The county council said decisions needed to be made about whether, “in the face of declining demand”, replacing the vehicles is the best use of resources.

The mobile library service costs £360,000 a year to run, but it is only used by around 2,230 people (less than one per cent of Hampshire’s library customers) and demand continues to decline with more than 100 of the mobile stops having fewer than four customers.

The county council estimates that this works out at £161 per customer and £3.95 per book issued. And these average costs will increase if demand continues to fall. It is the most expensive part of the library service.

Plans to bridge the gap for rural communities when mobile libraries disappear include free loaning of eReaders and a home library service because taking books to residents on a one-to-one visit could be more efficient.

There could also be new community library exchange services, managed by local organisations in smaller villages with support from the county council.

“We believe that these options would provide residents who currently use the mobile library service with a more efficient and flexible way to receive the written materials they want,” the strategy said.

As such, the plan is to get rid of the mobile library in the summer.

Whitehill Town Council leader Adam Carew said: “I love books and have hundreds of them. Through my life I have been able to educate myself and enrich my imagination thanks to a passion for reading I developed from an early age.

“Most of my family are in books or English teaching so I am a huge supporter of the principle of free or public libraries, but I also understand this has to be set against the changing pace of technology with its competing forms of new media, decline in use, and massive cuts in local council funding from central Government.

“This is a public consultation, nothing has been debated and nothing is set in stone. It is important that anyone who values libraries gets involved and has their say.”

* The draft strategy and the consultation questionnaire are both available online at hants.gov.uk/library, and it is also available in print from all Hampshire libraries. The consultation will close on Saturday, January 16.