{"id":337832,"date":"2026-03-19T18:31:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T18:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/337832\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T18:31:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T18:31:19","slug":"whangarei-residents-angry-over-sunday-library-closure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/337832\/","title":{"rendered":"Whang\u0101rei residents angry over Sunday library closure"},"content":{"rendered":"

An average of 380 people visit the library on Sundays. This compares with 690 on Saturdays and 1200 daily from Monday to Friday.<\/p>\n

Sunday library user Hiraani Rieck, from the Avenues, said the closure was disappointing.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first thought when I heard about the closure was \u2018What am I going to do for my Sundays\u2019,\u201d Rieck said.<\/p>\n

Sundays at the library were part of looking after her mental health and creating lifestyle balance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went there on Sundays to unwind and it didn\u2019t cost me anything. I was part of the community,\u201d Rieck said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot everybody can afford to destress by going to the beauty parlour, having a haircut or getting a massage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Residents spoken to by Local Democracy Reporting Northland want the library reopened on Sundays.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Whang\u0101rei\u2019sWhang\u0101rei\u2019s Jocelyn Taylor is a Sunday user of the city\u2019s main library and disappointed it\u2019s now shut on that day of the week. Photo \/ Susan Botting<\/p>\n

Retired teacher and library user Jocelyn Taylor said as a local paying very high rates, she expected it to be open on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Families used Sundays to take their children to the library to change books.<\/p>\n

Doing so normalised books, reading and more, which was a major plus for children\u2019s learning.<\/p>\n

She and others said families they visited the library on Sundays because it was the only day when their children weren\u2019t at school or tied up with Saturday sports.<\/p>\n

\"Whang\u0101reiWhang\u0101rei Chess Club\u2019s Greg Waite (left) and Brian Cox are forced to play their favourite game outside Whang\u0101rei central library after it closed on Sundays, thereby taking out the club\u2019s regular gathering venue. Photo \/ Susan Botting<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Retired University of Otago public health medicine specialist and library user Brian Cox, from Tikipunga, said Sunday was good for those with a disability or limited mobility.<\/p>\n

There was less traffic around, meaning they could get parking close to the library.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a pity such a big community resource gets knobbled in this way,\u201d Cox said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should be cherished, not shut,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Waite and Cox are part of Whang\u0101rei Chess Club, which has now lost one of its meeting venues with the closure.<\/p>\n

The duo protested the library\u2019s closure outside its shut front door on March 1.<\/p>\n

They will be attending Whang\u0101rei District Council\u2019s<\/a> March meeting, where Waite will be speaking about the issue.<\/p>\n

\"FollowingFollowing the closure on Sundays of the central library service, Whang\u0101rei’s Neil Johnson questions how far the council’s city library service has come since the old red-brick library to his right was built in 1935, 70 years before the new central library in the background, which opened in 2006. Photo \/ Susan Botting<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, semi-retired teacher Neil Johnson said those who built the first central library next door on Rust Ave in 1935 would be turning in their graves.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow far have we come if this is happening?\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

Johnson described the closure as an act of \u201ccultural vandalism\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe central library is part of the essential cultural fabric of the central city,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

\"Whang\u0101rei'sWhang\u0101rei’s Jan Miller says the council closing the city’s central library on Sundays could be the thin edge of the wedge. Photo \/ Susan Botting <\/p>\n

Retired Whang\u0101rei Hospital radiologist and Sunday library user Jan Miller said he was concerned the library\u2019s Sunday closure would become the thin edge of the wedge as the council looked to potentially halve its coming year\u2019s rates increase.<\/p>\n

Council research shows Whang\u0101rei\u2019s central library has New Zealand\u2019s lowest staffing level among similarly sized facilities.<\/p>\n

\"Whang\u0101rei\u2019sWhang\u0101rei\u2019s main library in the city\u2019s Rust Ave has hundreds of thousands of books, and other offerings. Photo \/ Susan Botting <\/p>\n

When asked whether the closure would be permanent, Couper said the people of Whang\u0101rei had the chance to have their say about the library as a part of the council\u2019s 2026\/2027 draft annual plan consultation.<\/p>\n

Feedback would be considered in the context of weighing up multiple different demands. Some hard decisions would have to be made.<\/p>\n

He said the Sunday closure happened because of the need to boost staffing across the library\u2019s Monday-Saturday opening days because of their patronage growth.<\/p>\n

Sunday staff had been redistributed across the rest of the week\u2019s openings.<\/p>\n

Staying open on Sundays would have meant employing more staff for that day, which had the week\u2019s lowest patronage.<\/p>\n

Couper said there was limited appetite for more staff before the council\u2019s Annual Plan budgeting for the coming financial year.<\/p>\n

People had expressed to council the need to lower the size of Whang\u0101rei\u2019s rates increases.<\/p>\n

The Government has also signalled capping rates at 2-4% in the future.<\/p>\n

\u25a0 LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An average of 380 people visit the library on Sundays. This compares with 690 on Saturdays and 1200…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[115849,677,19796,1853,2199,17163,1259,10666,5972,132252,670,2250,5829,2683,111,43,139,69,5493,1523,530,544,26699,10809,23371,1361,1869],"class_list":["post-337832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-accessible","tag-angry","tag-available","tag-central","tag-city","tag-closure","tag-community","tag-cuts","tag-day","tag-fuming","tag-library","tag-longer","tag-many","tag-move","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-open","tag-over","tag-residents","tag-some","tag-spaces","tag-sunday","tag-sundays","tag-that","tag-whangrei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}