Skills – Environment – Economy

Between November 2024 and March 2025, we ran six Repair Cafes at Settle Victoria Hall. The goal was to encourage people to extend the life of household items, with the help of volunteer repairers. Many people brought along objects that had great sentimental value, but needed simple fixes or perhaps replacement parts.

As a result of the pilot:

• We proved there is a need for this service;

• We found that people are delighted to be able to prolong the life of valued possessions, rather than throw them away;

• We identified needs for repair skills, particularly electrical, woodworking, jewellery, clocks and watches;

• We developed a set of procedures and a format that can be run by volunteers.

Some challenges were:

• We needed to broaden the range of repairer skills and enlarge our list of volunteer repairers;

• The pop-up format was not ideal, as repairers would turn up, but then their skills might not be needed. Conversely, people would bring items for repair, for which our team did not have the skills;

• We needed a space people could leave their items and collect when fixed;

• To run successfully, the Repair Café would need a small income stream and a more permanent space.

The next step is to consult more widely in Settle and find partners who could get involved. We could also investigate options of running workshops or classes, where people could do their own repairs under instruction from a skilled person. There seemed to be an interest in clothing and textile repairs, for example, as well as simple electrical and woodworking.