Mile Oak library to close

We’re sorry to announce that Mile Oak public library will close on 21 July 2023.

The closure is part of the city-wide savings plan to address the budget gap, agreed by councillors at the Brighton & Hove City Council budget meeting in February 2023.

The decision was based on the low number of customers using the Mile Oak library compared to the city’s other community libraries, and the high costs of running the service within the premises of the local school.

The Mile Oak library averaged 150 visits per month between April 2022 and March 2023. The average cost per customer visit at Mile Oak was £19.02, compared to an average of 78p across the other Brighton & Hove libraries.

We completed a public consultation on the closure, asking about the needs of current and potential Mile Oak library customers and looked at potential alternatives to meet those needs.

We had over 200 responses and, while the majority of respondents were not in favour of closing the library, unfortunately there were no viable options for making the savings required without closing the library.

Most of the current customers already use other libraries in the city and are able to travel to other local libraries.

Once closed, any remaining usable books and other items at Mile Oak library will be redistributed across the other libraries in the city.

Changes to staffed opening hours

As part of the budget savings agreed, we’ll be changing the opening times and reducing staffed hours in some of our community libraries from 1 July 2023.

We’re changing 7 days across the community libraries in Hangleton, Moulsecoomb, Patcham, Rottingdean, Whitehawk and Woodingdean from staffed to ’Libraries Extra’ opening.

Libraries Extra means the libraries will remain open to library members, who can access services when staff aren’t on site.

These libraries will now open as additional Libraries Extra on the following additional days:

  • Hangleton - Sunday
  • Moulsecoomb - Friday
  • Patcham - Monday and Thursday
  • Rottingdean - Sunday
  • Whitehawk - Wednesday
  • Woodingdean - Saturday

You can find all the up to date opening and staffed hours for all public libraries in the city in our library webpages.

Libraries Extra gives access to the library when it’s unstaffed using a Libraries Extra card and PIN.

Anyone not yet registered for Libraries Extra, can sign-up by bringing 2 forms of identification (one of which can be their standard library card) to any community library on a staffed day and a member of staff will help to get you started.

Sad loss of a library

Councillor Leslie Pumm, chair of the Equalities, Community Safety & Human Rights Committee, said: “I’m very sorry to see the Mile Oak public library close.

“Our library service has done amazingly well to keep libraries open in Brighton & Hove through a time where we’ve seen local authorities across the country closing services.

“Sadly, the low usage and high costs at Mile Oak mean it’s no longer viable to keep open.

“We will continuing to look at our options for what else we can do to support library users in the area.”

Accessing Brighton & Hove libraries

Residents already can access many of the city’s libraries 7 days a week through the use of Libraries Extra, allowing members to use the library facilities on unstaffed days. We also know many of our customers use our e-library as well as our physical stock.

Find out more about Brighton & Hove libraries: