St Ives held its first ever repair café on Saturday (October 8) at the town’s Methodist Church.

The event, which ran from 1pm until 4pm had been two years in the planning, but with a ‘superb’ team of organisers, repairers, caterers, and cheer leaders, it finally went ahead last weekend.

Residents turned up to the café with a variety of items which had previously been booked in including clothing, electrical items, jewellery, garden tools, bicycles, lamps, and computers.

Around 20 items were diagnosed but were not repairable, and over £120 was received in donations throughout the day which will go towards the hiring of the church hall and other expenses.

One person who had an item fixed at the repair café said: “Being a student this year and having my items fixed by kind-hearted people such as yourselves really warmed my heart.

“Well done to all involved for running such a successful event.”

The repair café was organised by St Ives EcoAction, a community-led climate action group that formed in 2020 to create a local climate action plan.

With so many products designed to fail and difficult to fix, the group says “it’s a little wonder that many items end up on the scrapheap or landfill”.

The growing global movement of repair cafes aims to turn that around, and St Ives has now joined the trend by adding to the growing network of repairers and repair cafes both in Cambridgeshire and internationally.

St Ives EcoAction organiser, Helen Dye, said: “We have demonstrated there is clearly a demand for items to be fixed, and while it is with regret that we were not able to attend to some of the items that were not booked in, we will just have to have another event soon.

“A huge thanks to all involved – small actions taken together make a big difference, and we are beginning to make a difference.

“Let’s keep up the momentum towards St Ives achieving NetZero by 2030!”

If you are a volunteer with repairing, organising, or communication skills, or just someone who would like to help St Ives EcoAction to build a culture mending things please email stivesecoaction@gmail.com.