Cannons Creek’s new purpose-built library will open its doors on Monday 28 September, with a community celebration marking a new chapter for the suburb’s library service.
The new Cannons Creek Library is at Bedford Reserve, 170 Bedford Street, alongside Cannons Creek Pool.
The opening day will run from 9.30am to 3pm, with free activities and kai including performances, face painting, storytelling, the Wā Tākaro play trailer, a sausage sizzle and soup.
Niue and Kuki Airani storyteller and writer Inangaro Vakaafi and Wellington storyteller, writer and poet Moira Wairama will lead storytelling sessions at 10am and 1pm in the new children’s area, with stories and myths from Aotearoa and the Pacific.
Cannons Creek Pool will also have inflatable activities from midday until 3pm, with normal pool entry fees applying.
The opening gives Cannons Creek a new, modern home for a library service that has become an important meeting, learning and after-school space for the community.
Porirua Libraries Manager Brian Anderson last month said that the library had developed into much more than somewhere to borrow books.
“The new library will be a space current and future generations will be proud to call their own,” Anderson said.
The new building replaces the Cannons Creek shopping centre library, which has served the community for more than 40 years.
That library officially opened on 11 May 1985 in a building previously occupied by Bonners Drapery. At the time it was three times the size of the suburb’s original library and was notable for reflecting Cannons Creek’s multicultural community, with signage in Māori and Pacific languages and carved panels depicting the creation of Porirua’s harbours and Pacific migration.
Cannons Creek’s first library opened on 5 February 1969 in a former Ministry of Works house that had been relocated from Prosser Street in Elsdon to Cannons Creek Park.
The new facility will therefore become the suburb’s third library.
The project was developed after the existing library increasingly struggled to accommodate the range of activities taking place there, including school visits, after-school use, public computer access and community activities.
The new library has been constructed using modular technology, allowing the building to be expanded in future if required. It will also provide new computers for public use.
Porirua City Council allocated $4 million to the project from funding already included in its 2024–34 Long-term Plan.
The community opening day will take place at the new Cannons Creek Library, 170 Bedford Street, from 9.30am to 3pm on Monday 28 September.