ALL public facilities in South Ayrshire have been closed due to fears over coronvirus. 

Swimming pools, libraries and museums have been closed with immediate affected as of today. 

It comes as South Ayrshire Council vow to protect critical and essential services to prevent the spread of the potentially lethal COVID-19. 

As of Friday, all schools in South Ayrshire will also close, confirmed by Nicola Sturgeon earlier today. 

The council have reassured residents that the services will continue to operate, as the rest of the council is placed into lock down. 

They have confirmed they are working hard to protect critical services such as Home Care, Community Alarms, Child and Adult Protection Services, Residential Care, Justice Services, Emergency Property Repairs, Environmental Health, Waste Management and Homeless services. 

A dedicated support service will be availble as the virus hampers people's finances. 

This telephone service offering money, welfare and benefits advice including access to crisis grants and food bank vouchers will be available to residents in need.

Customer servicce operations have been hampered by the virus, as face to face operations are cancelled.

Only the Registration service will continue on a face to face basis where residents can still register a birth, marriage or death in person. 

A spokesperson for South Ayrshire Council said: "To reduce the spread of the virus, swimming pools and activity centres, golf and bowling green club houses, all libraries, museums and galleries will close – with all community lets having also been cancelled.

"For information on essential services please visit our website or call 0300 123 0900.

"For health information on coronavirus (COVID-19) please visit NHS Inform.  For information on social distancing, please visit Gov.uk website."