A Stitch in Time: Skipton’s First Ever Repair Café Launches
We’re happy to report that the launch of our community repair event, Skipton Repair Café, has been a major success! Over 100 visitors dropped by on the 28th of June, most looking for help with a damaged possession but others interested to see the kinds of things we were working on.
If you missed this one then worry not: we run them monthly, they’re free, and there’s no need to book in advance. See our Repair Café page for the latest dates.
The first Skipton Repair Café was held by Share Skipton on 28th June 2025 at St Andrew’s church hall, Newmarket Street
We achieved an astounding 70 successful mends on the day, without expectation of anything in return and all done in the space of just 3 hours. Once again we’d like to thank our community of skilled volunteer repairers, the supporters and café crew who kept everything moving, and all of you who decided to fix, not throw.
On top of everyone’s cost-savings compared to re-buying, and the personal value of some of the things restored, we prevented an estimated 802kg of greenhouse gases (CO₂e) from being released by the unnecessary manufacture of replacement products. That’s the same as driving about 3,329 miles, or from Skipton to Leeds and back every day for two months.
Items given a second chance included broken lamps and electricals, dulled kitchen/ gardening equipment, clothing and worn-through leather bags, jewellery, glasses, children’s toys, and lots more. We counted an 88% success rate (predicted to rise in future sessions) and, for the few cases we couldn’t resolve, offered advice or signposting to local repair businesses. We’re really pleased to be able to help so many people and have already had lots of nice comments from visitors about the friendly atmosphere and sense of collaboration.
In current times, you'd be forgiven for thinking that fixing things has become a lost art. In fact more than 8 in 10 of us can repair their own clothes to some degree, and those who can't will be capable of something else, like replacing a fuse or tightening loose parts. The problem is often the range of items individuals are confident trying to fix, time, or a lack of the right tools.
That’s why one of the goals of Skipton Repair Café is not just to mend things, but mend them together. By sharing skills and learning from others, it’s a rewarding way to build familiarity with the minor faults we could handle ourselves; when you’ve conquered it once, the second time will be quicker; and with the library of Things you have the right equipment for the job.
Repair Cafés also fill the gap of there not being a repair shop offering what you need, especially in the case of small items that might cost the same to fix as to buy new: if we can cut down the number of toys, small electricals and other things going to landfill, it’s worth it!
Amongst our team of experienced hobbyists and retired professionals, repairers from Skipton Domestics and Exley Opticians volunteered their services too. We're grateful to have also had the support of the Co-op and Trinity St Andrew’s, who supplied and ran the on-site café. We felt it was important to showcase other sustainability options as well: this first event had a stall selling biodegradable cleaning refills and a neighbouring stand for second-hand items.
Triaging items by repair type
Co-op donations in the St Andrew’s kitchen
Selling table (left); Eco cleaning liquids from Silsden-based producer Miniml (right)
The event was the first of its kind in Skipton but draws on the experience of other repair cafés across the country and around the world. We’ve learnt a lot from Silsden’s Repair Café especially, the folks at Harrogate Repair Café, and have found Farnham’s carbon calculator to be a useful resource as well.
Visiting local businesses in early June
As you can imagine, a lot of hard work went into this – both directly and indirectly – from Share Skipton chair Angela, project co-ordinator Jill, volunteer co-ordinator Morgan, and all of the Share Skipton volunteers and trustees. We had a great time speaking with local businesses in the lead-up, and would also like to give Craven College a shout-out for their assistance early on in the project. And of course, this and future events were made possible by grants from the National Lottery Community Fund, the Two Ridings Community Foundation, and all of our like-minded supporters over the past several months.
But there’s lots more to do to make Skipton the sustainable town it’ll need to be!
Want to meet fellow Skiptoners as a front-of-house volunteer? Either a Repair Café Support Star or library of Things Librarian would be a perfect fit.
Like the idea of a hands-on role keeping things working for longer? A Repair Café Repairer or behind-the-scenes Inventory Technician might be what you’re looking for.
For information on these and other volunteering opportunities, please visit our Volunteer page.
Thank you again everyone for your support - see you at the next one!
(some of) the original Skipton Repair Café team, 28/06/2025
External references and further reading
Farnham carbon calculator (frc.cfsd.org.uk) , Research summary on clothes repairs (threadsmonthly.com) , Skipton Domestics Ltd (checkatrade.com) , Exley Optician (exleyopticians.co.uk) , Ethics at The Co‑op (co‑operative.coop) , Silsden’s Repair Café (climateactionsilsden.org.uk) , Harrogate Repair Café (harrogaterepaircafe.co.uk) , What is a Circular Economy? (shareskipton.org)
