DURHAM County Council’s customer access point (CAP) at Barnard Castle library will only be open three days a week if new proposals are accepted.
It is currently open to the public from Monday to Wednesday between 10am and 5pm and on Friday between 10am and 4.30pm.
Under the new recommendations which is to be considered by the county council’s cabinet today (Wednesday) the CAP will close on a Wednesday and only operate on Monday, Tuesday and Friday.
A report by the council director of resources Paul Darby said changes were proposed for four of the county’s least used CAPs.
It said: “Changes in both working practices and customer behaviour have resulted in a reduction in demand for face-to-face customer service provision and an increase in demand across alternative customer service pathways.”
It added that most people were using telephones, email or webchat to access
customer services at the council.
Mr Darby’s report said: “More recently, an artificial intelligence based ‘Chatbot’ has been successfully introduced to complement these channels.”
Other CAPs affected are at Chester-le-Street, Consett and Stanley.
The report said the changes, which are to be implemented by October, would save about £137,000.
The savings will be made by reducing four full-time equivalent posts by deleting vacant posts.
The report said footfall at access points fell off when they were reopened in April 2022 after having been closed during the Covid pandemic.
It said this was because more people had become more internet literate when the service was shut.
