Unstaffed Local Libraries Could See Opening Hours Double

Council's 'self-access' model would see CCTV monitoring installed

The interior of Brentford Library

July 9, 2026

If you use Brentford, Isleworth or Osterley libraries, a report to be presented to Hounslow Council's Cabinet next week could change how, and for how long, you're able to get through the door.

The three branches are among 11 Community Hubs and Libraries across the borough earmarked for a new "self-access" operating model, funded through a £1.2 million capital investment programme, which would let registered library members enter and use the building during additional hours when staff are not on site, with the space monitored instead by CCTV.

All three of the local libraries could effectively see opening hours double although they would still only operated four days a week whilst the time that staff are present falls. Brentford currently opens 37 hours a week, all of it staffed, across four days. Under the proposed model this would become 80 hours a week in total, made up of 17 staffed hours and 63 self-access hours. Isleworth and Osterley follow an almost identical pattern: both currently open 37 hours a week over four days, and both would move to 80 total hours, made up of just 18 staffed hours and 62 self-access hours. In all three cases, the number of days open each week stays at four.

At Brentford, staffed hours would fall from 37 a week to 17, a cut of 20 hours, or around 54 per cent. At Isleworth and Osterley, staffed hours would fall from 37 to 18, a cut of 19 hours, or around 51 per cent, at each site. In other words, more than half of the currently-staffed time at these three branches would be replaced by unstaffed, self-access hours rather than added to. The overall doubling of opening hours, from 37 to 80 a week at each site, is real, but it is being delivered overwhelmingly through self-access time rather than through more hours with a member of staff present.

This pattern is not unique to these three libraries, but it appears more pronounced here than at some other sites in the borough. Chiswick, for comparison, would see staffed hours fall by a smaller margin, from 53 to 43 a week, a cut of around 19 per cent, while its total hours rise by about half. Brentford, Isleworth and Osterley are losing a larger share of their staffed time, proportionally, even as all three end up at the same 80-hour weekly ceiling as Chiswick and several other sites. One detail worth noting for Isleworth users specifically is that the branch is flagged in the report as a site that is staffed for additional hours or days through colocated council services, rather than library staff alone, so a portion of its reduced staffed allocation may in practice be supplemented by other Council teams working from the same building, though the report does not spell out how that would work.

For users, this matters most in the hours that would shift from staffed to self-access. Self-access will be limited to registered members using their library card, with no staff on hand and the space monitored remotely by CCTV rather than in person. Anyone who currently relies on staff for help, whether finding materials, using public computers, or simply feeling comfortable in the building, would find that support available for a notably smaller slice of the week than today, even though the building itself would be open for longer overall. The Council has acknowledged that unstaffed access carries its own risks, and has committed to site-by-site health and safety and security assessments including CCTV installation before self-access hours begin anywhere.

What doesn't change under the proposal, for any of the three branches, is the number of days open each week: four now, four in future. Anyone whose visits are tied to a day the library currently doesn't open at all will not find that changed by this plan.

None of this is yet fixed. The figures for Brentford, Isleworth and Osterley are described in the business case as indicative, and are subject to change through a period of public engagement expected to run from summer through autumn 2026, alongside site-specific risk assessments and design work continuing into November 2026. That engagement is intended specifically to test and refine assumptions like these, so users of these three libraries who have views on the scale of the shift from staffed to self-access hours will have a direct opportunity to feed into how the model is finalised locally. Building and equipment upgrades are expected to begin from January 2027, with the first self-access sites going live from April 2027 and a wider rollout continuing through to September 2027.