Repair Cafe opens doors as team backs calls to fix laws
Bath Share and Repair day is coming to Larkhall on Saturday with a repair shop to fix poorly gadgets, to prevent waste and share skills.
At the Repair Cafe in New Oriel Hall, Brookleaze Buildings, from 10am to 1pm there will be many volunteers with the right knowhow on hand to help. Visitors should arrive before 12.30pm to ensure a repairer can check their item.
“Lamps, small gadgets, devices, clothes and bikes are often easily fixed but many people don’t know where to start,” said Lorna Montgomery, a founding trustee of Share and Repair (Bath).
An ITV documentary with Chris Choi, Repair or Replace? Britain in a Fix, will be shown tonight on ITV1 at 7.30pm and aims to raise awareness of over-consumption and ask whether existing UK laws giving us the right to repair go far enough.
It is part of International Repair Day, which is celebrated around the world on the third Saturday of September to highlight local repair shops and companies that provide repair information, spare parts and tools. Lorna said: “If we can keep good household items working longer, it saves all the materials and emissions needed to make something new.”
According to a briefing published this week by the Restart Project, repairers around the world are also focusing their attention on governments and manufacturers, and three-quarters of the UK public think that the Government should make products easier to repair.
“We need repair-friendly policies to make it much easier for people to get things fixed and unlock all those benefits to our communities, the economy and the planet,” said James Pickstone from The Restart Project. “That’s why we urgently need a real Right to Repair enshrined in law.”
Larkhall repair cafe opens on the third Saturday of each month and was one of the first repair cafes to open in Bath. More than 20 volunteers are available to fix small kitchen appliances, clothes and bikes.