ODIHAM library has won a reprieve from closure – at least until the end of next year.

Public libraries throughout the county were under threat, because of pressure to save money across a swathe of services. And a draft strategy published earlier this year made it look like the writing was on the wall for smaller branches, such as Odiham.

But on Monday, Hampshire County Council announced a plan to stave off decisions about library closures until the end of 2017. The council’s culture and communities select committee hopes the new plan will ‘help shape a sustainable future for Hampshire’s library services’.

The big losers, however, will be those who rely on mobile libraries. They are being taken off the road this summer.

Until now Hook has received a visit from the library lorry once a week. And it stops in Odiham once a month on a Thursday.

Not any more – those visits will stop at the end of June. Instead, the so-called home library service is being touted as a replacement. It will be expanded in an attempt to fill the gap for readers unable to get to their local library.

A public consultation came before this week’s announcements. The council says 62 per cent of consultation respondents were in favour of the scrapping mobile libraries.

Only one percent of library users said they benefit from them. Officials calculated that it costs £11.44 for every customer visit to a mobile library. By comparison, it costs just £2.33 when a reader visits a static library.

So what will the replacement service look like? The council has proposed several options.

At the 20 busiest mobile stops, the library service will work out how volunteers can deliver books to appropriate community gatherings.

They also propose to offer free online learning services. And they aim to develop links with the voluntary groups that already provide community transport, to help arrange a trip to the local library for those in isolated communities.

A council report from earlier this year said: “In view of the inefficiency of the mobile library service, and the overall support by respondents and Hampshire residents during the consultation, it is recommended that a decision is taken to close the service from the end of June 2016.”

Over the 11-week public consultation, the council received over 9,500 replies. That represents one of the largest responses the county council has ever had.

The report added that the council is facing ‘the most challenging period of prolonged national austerity measures’. The period has seen funding by central government to local authorities cut by more than half.

“The council has already delivered £240 million of savings since 2008, and is on track to deliver a further £98 million by April 2017,” the report claimed.

“In December 2015, the government announced larger than expected cuts to the local authority funding formula, which means another £140 million of savings will need to be found by 2019-2020.”

Hampshire County Council estimates it must save £1.7 million from the library service as a whole by 2020. The closure of the mobile service will contribute £360,000 towards that target.

Further savings will be delivered by getting libraries to share their presmises with other public services. The council claims 77 per cent supported the measure in the public consutation.

And there was 75 per cent approval for withdrawing poorly used library collections such as CDs, games and DVDs.

Confirmation of the cuts was greeted by protests outside the headquarters of Hampshire County Council in Winchester. A small crowds of 15-20 people held aloft signs with slogans such as ‘Save our libraries, No to cuts!’, ‘No more austerity’ and ‘We love our libraries’.