Many Whangārei residents are fuming the central city library is no longer open on Sundays — a move some say cuts off one of the few accessible community spaces available on that day.
By Susan Bottling of Local Democracy Reporting
The decision has landed badly with many older adults who say families, students and week-day workers are all impacted.
The 20-year-old library was shut for the first time under the new regime on Sunday, March 1.
Whangārei Mayor Ken Couper says the closure was necessary to avoid the risk of suburban libraries shutting.
The library has been open for almost 1000 Sundays since they were started 19 years ago, except for Covid-19 lockdowns, Cyclone Gabrielle, Easter Sundays and other public holidays.
An average of 380 people visit the library on Sundays. This compares with 690 on Saturdays and 1200 daily from Monday to Friday.
Sunday library user Hiraani Rieck, from the Avenues, said the closure was disappointing.
“My first thought when I heard about the closure was ‘What am I going to do for my Sundays’,” Rieck said.
Sundays at the library were part of looking after her mental health and creating lifestyle balance.
“I went there on Sundays to unwind and it didn’t cost me anything. I was part of the community,” Rieck said.
"Not everybody can afford to destress by going to the beauty parlour, having a haircut or getting a massage."
Residents spoken to by Local Democracy Reporting Northland want the library reopened on Sundays.
Suggestions floated included closing the library instead for a day or two half days during the working week and looking for other cost-cutting options.
Retired teacher and library user Jocelyn Taylor said as a local paying very high rates, she expected it to be open on Sunday.
Families used Sundays to take their children to the library to change books.
Doing so normalised books, reading and more, which was a major plus for children's learning.
She and others said families they visited the library on Sundays because it was the only day when their children weren’t at school or tied up with Saturday sports.
Riverside child poverty researcher Greg Waite said Sunday library openings offered families impacted by deprivation access to the facilities, including the internet and books they often did not have at home.
Retired Otago University public health medicine specialist and library user Brian Cox, from Tikipunga, said Sunday was good for those with a disability or limited mobility.
There was less traffic around, meaning they could get parking close to the library.
“It’s a pity such a big community resource gets knobbled in this way,” Cox said.
“It should be cherished, not shut,” he said.
Waite and Cox are part of the Whangārei chess club, which has now lost one of its meeting venues with the closure.
The duo protested the library’s closure outside its shut front door on March 1.
They will be attending Whangārei District Council’s March meeting where Waite will be speaking about the issue.
Meanwhile, semi-retired teacher Neil Johnson said those who built the first central library next door on Rust Avenue in 1935 would be turning in their graves.
“How far have we come if this is happening?” Johnson said.
Johnson described the closure as an act of "cultural vandalism".
“The central library is part of the essential cultural fabric of the central city,” Johnson said.
Retired Whangārei Hospital radiologist and Sunday library user Jan Miller said he was concerned the library’s Sunday closure would become the thin edge of the wedge as the council looked to potentially halve its coming year’s rates increase.
Council research shows Whangārei’s central library has New Zealand's lowest staffing level among similarly sized facilities.
Mayor Couper, when asked whether the closure would be permanent, said the people of Whangārei had the chance to have their say about the library as a part of the council’s 2026/2027 draft annual plan consultation.
Feedback would be considered in the context of weighing up multiple different demands. Some hard decisions would have to be made.
He said the Sunday closure happened because of the need to boost staffing across the library’s Monday-Saturday opening days due to their patronage growth.
Sunday staff had been redistributed across the rest of the week’s openings.
Staying open on Sundays would have meant employing more staff for that day, which had the week’s lowest patronage.
Couper said there was limited appetite for more staff ahead of the council’s Annual Plan budgeting for the coming financial year.
People had expressed to council the need to lower the size of Whangārei’s rates increases.
The government has also signalled capping rates at 2-4% in the future.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
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