The Edenbridge Repair Café is part of a global initiative to help reduce the number of items going to landfill. There are over 140 cafés in the UK alone and the number is constantly growing.
One new visitor to the café, Julia Church, has written about her first experience of using this facility earlier this year:
“On Saturday 25th January I visited the Edenbridge Repair Café for the first time. My shopping cart was falling apart so I thought I would see if it could be repaired before consigning it to landfill and purchasing a replacement. I also took along a musical Christmas clock that had stopped functioning some years ago and had since been put on display for decorative purposes only each Christmas.
Edenbridge Repair Café was co-founded by David Franklin and Carol Conquest who, with the help of funding from Edenbridge Town Council, held the first session in May 2022.
Supported by a group of volunteers, the Café provides a very warm welcome for its visitors and uses a computerised system introduced in 2023 to register and record all items being brought in for repair. Visitors are invited to partake of refreshments provided by Edenbridge Repair Café whilst waiting to go through to the main hall where the repairs are carried out.
When I visited, the hall was a hive of activity, with volunteer repairers with expertise in sewing, electrical, IT, woodwork, tool sharpening, watch battery replacement, bike repairs, basic jewellery repair and general repairs on hand. All were generously offering their services and advice for free, but donations are gratefully received.
One of the volunteers, Lin Larmer, told me that in March 2023 Edenbridge Repair Café was awarded “Volunteer Group of the Year” by Sevenoaks District Council in their “Making it Happen Community and Voluntary Awards”. In the same year, SDC also gave the Repair Café funding to purchase a PAT testing machine.
Lin said: “The Repair Café relies on our wonderful group of volunteer repairers and hosts in order to provide this great service in Edenbridge but we always need more volunteers!”
I was delighted that one of the volunteer repairers, Paul, successfully repaired my shopping cart and also the music mechanism in my clock.”
– Julia Church
If you have something that you think could be saved from landfill, bring it along to one of the monthly cafés, held on the fourth Saturday of the month (excluding August and December) at the Eden Centre, Four Elms Road, TN8 6BY from 10am until 1pm (last repair orders taken at 12.30pm).
