Waterstones may have closed in Epsom on Monday but a new book centre has opened up at the other end of the town.

Books for Free in the Upper High Street may not have anything like the range of books that were available in the Ashley Centre and none of them are hot off the press.

But it has one distinct advantage over its commercial ex rival - all its books are free.

The scheme, run by the environmental charity Healthy Planet, rescues unwanted books destined for landfill sites across the UK and redistributes them from empty retail outlets.

The Epsom shop opened in October 2011 and is currrently open on Tuesday and Friday afternoons from 2 to 5.30pm.

It is one of 17 the charity currently runs across the UK manned by volunteers and distributing over 150 tonnes of books a year.

John Brookes, communications and marketing manager for Books for Free "It’s about saving books which no longer have any commercial value, but people can still get a lot of use out of them."

Julia Williams, 46, an author from Epsom said: "Anything that promotes books and reading is great in my view. But a town of Epsom’s size deserves a decent book shop. In my view it’s a tragedy that we’ve lost Waterstones."

The centre is currently looking for new volunteers to help run the centre.

For more information visit healthyplanet.org or to volunteer email volunteer@healthyplanet.org