Opening hours at Wiltshire’s libraries are to be reduced as part of cuts by Wiltshire Council.

Apart from Wootton Bassett library all the county’s libraries will have reduced hours.

The new Pewsey Library, which was opened last month at a cost of £900,000, will have its hours cut by ten to 14 and it will be closed on Saturdays.

Marlborough Library’s opening hours will be cut by nine and a half and it will open half a day on Saturdays instead of all day.

Hours at Devizes Library will be cut by eight and it will open late on two evenings a week instead of three.

Late opening at Malmesbury will be cut from three to two days a week, while Calne will be open five days a week instead of six.

Wootton Bassett is the only library which will see its hours increase, by half an hour to 40 hours.

Ten of the smallest libraries, including Lyneham, Box, Aldbourne, Ramsbury and Market Lavington, will remain open only if volunteers come forward.

Otherwise the libraries will close and be replaced by the mobile library service for three hours per week.

The council also hopes volunteers will help out at the larger libraries to boost the opening hours.

No redundancies are planned and the council intends any staff reductions to be through natural wastage.

The proposals will save £505,000 over two years while £546,500 is set to be spent on automated machines for customers to scan their books.

The proposals are set to be approved by Wiltshire Council’s Conservative run Cabinet at a meeting on Tuesday and come into effect in September.

Deputy leader of Wiltshire Council, Coun John Thomson, said: “This is a very good solution which preserves the structure of libraries so they are still there in the future.

“We are still committed to libraries but we have to face the fact that we have a 28 per cent reduction in funding from central Government.”