LIBRARIES are to open for longer in order to benefit residents.

Aura Leisure and Libraries Limited, in partnership with Flintshire Council, has announced plans to improve and extend opening hours across library sites to enable better access to services for residents.

From May 8 the county's libraries will be changing their opening hours to allow for increased, easier and more convenient access for customers.

This will mean that all sites will be open from 9am and will also be open 9am to 1pm every Saturday.

Each branch will also have at least one evening per week where they open until 6pm.

The new opening hours offer an increase across the service from 275 hours to 284 hours.

A spokesman for Aura Leisure and Libraries Ltd said the organisation is committed to continually improving the standard of service to customers, adding: "We recently reviewed how the majority of our customers utilised the library service and looked at how we could best meet demand.

"We found that our customers would prefer that we open earlier in the day during the week and close later on a Saturday.

"We found that between 6pm and 7pm we had minimal visits and issues so we decided to use that time and staffing resource in a smarter way for our customers without incurring any additional costings.

"Aura will continue to review opening hours across our libraries as we continue on our journey as a new employee-owned, not-for-profit organisation."

There are a number of ways customers can still access library services after 6pm.

The Self Service library facility at Deeside, within the Leisure Centre, is open from 6am until 10pm throughout the week.

Deeside Library is staffed between 1pm and 6pm, Monday to Friday, and 9am to 1pm on Saturday.

Residents can also access the library service online 24 hours a day at https://aura.wales/libraries/

An Aura spokesman added: "We want to increase opportunities for people to access our library services across Flintshire and enable more people, more active minds and bodies, more often."