Horwich and Brazley libraries will become part of a new pilot scheme under a planned shake-up of Bolton's library service. Under the proposals which will be put before Bolton's Education and Arts Committee today, the opening hours at Brazley will be cut and Horwich Library will gain an extra morning. Brazley which at present is open three days a week and Saturday mornings, will open four afternoons from 2.30pm to 5pm and on Saturday morning.

The plans were outlined to Horwich Town Council's finance and general purposes committee on Monday by Bolton's chief librarian Mrs Kath Ryan.

It is proposed that Horwich and Brazley will be one of two pilot schemes operating for a 12 month period. The other scheme will be centred on New Bury where it is planned to close the library and transfer resources to the community centre. The situation will be assessed after a year to find out the response from users.

Mrs Ryan said during the last ten to 15 years the library service has been hit by a series of budget cuts and constraints. Five years ago a number of problems were identified which showed resources were too thinly spread, there were no real priorities and not enough investment in new technology. Earlier this year a working group was set up to look at the problems and the group visited all of the town's branch libraries to see what was there and to identify potential.

Mrs Ryan said a lot of information is now coming through new technology but not enough cash is invested in it. She said the group visited a secondary school and found it was better equipped than Bolton Central Library in terms of information technology.

It is now thought that the way forward is to ensure that the central library is adaquately resourced along with five other key libraries at Horwich, Westhoughton, Farnworth, Little Lever and Harwood. Councillor Mrs Barbara Ronson said it was difficult to accept cuts in hours at any branch library.

" If we start this redirection of resources on a trial period, people will think it is the beginning of the end for some branch libraries."

Councillor Kevan Helsby said the council should support the experiment. He said no one should be deprived of having access to new technology.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.