Stevenage Repair Café opens to help fix your broken items

The community initiative, led by Terry Alderson, hopes to bring together residents and repairers to extend the life of their broken objects.

It is entirely free for residents to use the café, from the repairing itself to the teas and coffees while you wait!

At the first café, held in Bedwell Community Centre on Saturday, August 5, repairers were able to fix five of the seven items brought in for some TLC.

A beaming resident poses with her now-fixed noticeboard - and the repairer who helped her out. (Image: Stevenage Repair Café)

These included two loose chairs, a trolley with a puncture, and a noticeboard that was coming apart.

So far, more than a dozen repairers have signed up to volunteer their time at the café and Terry hopes that this will only grow further in time - as well as the number of people showing up with broken items.

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Terry's project to bring a repair café to Stevenage began late last year, and since then he has poured a huge amount of time into bringing it to fruition.

He says that the biggest obstacle in that time has been insurance - to cover the café if, for example, a repaired item was to break and injure somebody.

But after six months of filling forms for a vast array of insurance companies - and just five days before the opening - Terry was able to secure a deal. The Repair Café has also formed a committee and has its trustees in place, with all the building blocks prepared for it to grow into a flourishing community initiative.

Terry told the Comet: "Everybody you speak to says this is a marvellous project - we're doing our bit to save the planet, in a way.

A trolley with a punctured tyre was one of the items fixed at the first Repair Café in Stevenage. (Image: Stevenage Repair Café)

"Every time something is manufactured, carbon is released, so we've got to stop doing that so much.

"If we can repair and reuse, that means that something doesn't have to be manufactured, there's less carbon going into the atmosphere - even prolonging the life of something by a year or two makes a difference."

While he is "very encouraged by the enthusiasm of our volunteers", Terry is always on the lookout for more people who may be willing to lend their time.

He's especially keen to find another electrician who can act as a backup PAT tester, and says that anybody looking to learn basic repair skills is also invited to come along.

Two chairs were among the other items to be fixed by the repair volunteers. (Image: Stevenage Repair Café)

Stevenage Borough Council have contributed "technical and financial support" for the project, as part of their measures aimed at tackling climate change, and will provide funding to support the first six months.

The next Stevenage Repair Café will be held at Bedwell Community Centre from 2pm on Saturday, September 2, with further cafés held at the same place on the first Saturday of every month.

If you would like to donate to the café to support its work, you can do so here.