Families in Pewsey have been shocked to discover that opening hours are scheduled to be slashed at their £940,000 super-library, which opened just four weeks ago.

Under cost-saving proposals announced this week, the hours are due to be cut from 24 to 14 on four weekdays with no Saturday opening.

Long serving parish councillor Phil Stevens, who in December described the new library as an early Christmas present for the village, said yesterday: “Now Wiltshire Council is almost taking its Christmas present back...Scrooge has arrived.”

On Tuesday evening Pewsey’s Wiltshire councillor Jerry Kunkler told the parish council that library hours were being cut according to a banding structure and he was hoping to get Pewsey’s moved to the band that includes Marlborough and Amesbury with fewer cuts in opening hours.

The proposal for a reduction at Marlborough library from 42.5 to 33 hours per week would result in a half day closure on Saturdays and the two late nights on Mondays and Thursdays ending at 7pm instead of 8pm.

A 73-year-old grandmother who uses the Marlborough library regularly said: “I think Marlborough will be escaping the cuts lightly, it could have been much worse. At least it will still be open five days a week even if the hours are cut.”