This week, our editorial team decided to put themselves in the shoes of library users who will be affected if Hampshire County Council's proposals to close ten centres across the county go ahead.

We road-tested the consultation document which predicted the average journey time for residents in affected areas to travel to their next closest library.

Chineham Library

If Chineham closes down, the nearest library will be Basingstoke Discovery Centre.

Bethany Whittingham tested the route on Thursday.

Trip: Chineham Library to Basingstoke Discovery Centre

Mode of Transport: Bus

Time Hampshire County Council estimates it should take: 18 minutes

How long it actually took: 35 minutes

Cost: £1.90 single, £4.00 return

Out of the three libraries on our patch, Chineham is the most popular library in the borough aside from the Discovery Centre and is the only tier two library which has bee threatened with closure.

The library serves between 30,000 to 55,000 people a year, almost five time more than tier three libraries with users from the ages of two to 82 as I found out this week.

As someone who doesn’t drive, I heavily rely on public transport and I can safely say it's not the most reliable at the best of times.

I set off at 'after school' time, shortly after 4.35pm. As I arrived at the library, children were running through the isles of books with their friends when I bumped into 63-year-old grandmother Jane Monk and her six-year-old granddaughter, Matilda who had just collected her weekly library book.

Jane said: “We pick the children up from school most days and we always come and visit the library, it’s only a five minute walk and the children love it here.”

My phone told me that the journey would take approximately 29 minutes via public transport, nearly ten minutes more than the council's prediction of 18 minutes.

The buses to the town centre were fairly regular with one arriving every fifteen minutes but during peak rush hour this stretched to 20 minute.

I finally caught the number 7 bus after a seven-minute delay which took me to the Discovery Centre for 5.10pm, a full 35 minutes after departure.

The return trip had me waiting for a further 20 minutes as the earliest bus was cancelled at the last minute, making that 40 minutes of wasted time.

After an hour and a half round-trip I landed back at Chineham library with 30 minutes left to spare before the volunteers closed up for the night (and half an hour later than the Discovery Centre opens until)

Overall, for a journey which is only three miles away and costs £4.00 I don’t think the journey is worth the time or money, especially if users want to visit on a weekly basis.

By closing down Chineham library, the council would be depriving thousands of people from access to free books and internet access with an unaffordable and inconvenient alternative.

South Ham Library

If South Ham library closes, the nearest library for South Ham residents would be Basingstoke Discovery Centre.

Elliott Binks tried out the route on Thursday.

Trip: South Ham library to Basingstoke Discovery Centre

Mode of transport: Bus

Time HCC estimates it should take: 17 minutes

Time it took our reporter: 23 minutes there (39 minutes back)

Cost: £3.90

SOUTH Ham library sits bang in the heart of the ward’s community. Or rather, smack bang next to the heart of the community, sitting side by side with Westside Community Centre. Even on days like Thursday, when the library closes, the car park is packed full of local families coming and going from the evening’s various youth groups.

The outbound journey when I tested the journey on Thursday was pretty smooth.

While the number 4 leaves from right in front of the library, it only runs on an hourly basis. But a short, three-minute walk away is a bus stop for the number 3, which also runs to Festival Place. After a hassle-free bus ride, plus the walk from the bus stop to the Discovery Centre, I clocked in with an official journey time of 23 minutes. Six minutes longer than HCC’s suggestion, but not a bad run, all things considered.

It was the return leg where the issues arose.

After leaving Basingstoke Discovery Centre at 5.41pm and arriving at the bus stop at 5.47pm, our reporter missed the number 4 bus by a matter of seconds. The wait for the next one? Fourteen minutes. And even then, the bus was a minute late leaving the station.

By this point 21 minutes had elapsed since leaving Basingstoke Discovery Centre – four minutes longer than HCC’s prediction for the entire journey.

After 14 minutes on the bus, and a brief four-minute walk from the bus stop on Pinkerton Road to South Ham library, the journey was done and dusted in 39 minutes.

That’s a total of one hour and two minutes of travel time, for a trip that’s said to take 17 minutes each way.

Thursday’s experiment showed two ends of the spectrum; a straightforward, hiccup-free journey to the Discovery Centre, followed by a frustrating return leg taking more than twice what HCC suggests.

It’s a roll of the dice that residents may soon have no choice but to take.

Odiham library

Should Odiham library close, residents would be faced with a choice between Basingstoke, Fleet or Alton libraries.

Ryan Evans tried out the route from Odiham to Alton.

Trip: Odiham library to Alton

Mode of transport: Bus & walk

Time HCC estimates it should take: 30 minutes

Time it took our reporter: 57 minutes

Cost: £3.70 (single).

ODIHAM itself is a lovely little village - and fittingly its library is on a quaint back street, next to the church, junior school and a lovely pub.

The library itself shares a building with the MP’s office and the village’s PCSO. On leaving the library, I was immediately faced with a decision. There are three libraries around the same distance away, and all are equally hard to get to. And on all three, you’re relying on the number 13 bus between Basingstoke and Alton, which only comes once an hour.

So after a five minute walk, I was waiting at the bus stop for around 15 minutes to get the bus towards Alton. This was, predictably, running late.

When it finally did arrive, the bus was caught up in the normal traffic at that time of day, meaning that by the time I did arrive in Alton, it was dark. And it wasn’t an easy walk from the bus stop to the library - walking along a busy road and down a steep hill.

For people who don’t know where they’re going, this can be an extremely stressful journey, and whilst it may only take 15 minutes in the car, on public transport it is much longer, especially as buses and trains are infrequent.

By the time I got back to Odiham just a couple of hours later, I felt exhausted, and all I’d done was travel there and back. I’d spent no time at the library, and residents that need to use the facility would have to probably set aside half a day, rather than just being able to nip in on their way home from school.