Southampton Repair Cafe is a place where people can bring broken items to be fixed by our expert repairers at the same time as having a cuppa and some homemade cake and meeting like-minded others.
As keen supporters of repair and reuse we have signed the repair and reuse declaration and urge everyone else who cares about repair to do so too! The declaration calls on government to make repair more affordable, expand the UK’s right to repair regulations to cover all consumer products and strengthen design standards, introduce requirements and targets for reuse and repair to be prioritised over recycling and support a new generation of repairers through repair training, accreditation and apprenticeships.
See our home page for a list of upcoming repair cafe dates.
See our blog for for more about Repair Cafe in Southampton.
We have been running since 2014, have run over 150 events including pop-ups at various sites, and have tackled over 3500 items with a 60-70% success rate. We have over 40 volunteers who between them have clocked up over 6000 hours of volunteer time. What we most lack is someone with both experience and enthusiasm for advertising us on social media sites, so if this is you please get in touch! Come along to one of our events or email repaircafe [at] transitionsouthampton [dot]org
We repair all sorts of things including: Electrical items, Computers, Jewellery, Bikes, Clothes, Woodwork, metal work, furniture and gluing. If we can’t fix it we may be able to advise you what to do next. Please note, at present we lack a clock/watch repairer – although many jewellers will tackle this kind of repair.
We are now running two cafes per month (except Jan and Dec) across four sites in the city.
First Saturday of month alternating:
Freemantle Baptist Church, Testwood Rd, SO15 8RL (Feb/Apr/Jun/Aug/Oct/Dec) and
St James by the Park (Shirley) Parish Hall, 1 Colebrook Ave (Mar/May/Jul/Sep/Nov).
Third Saturday of month alternating:
St Denys Community Centre, Priory Rd, SO17 2JZ (Jan/Mar/May/Jul/Sep/Nov) and
Immaculate Conception Church hall, Portswood Rd, SO17 3SB (Feb/Apr/Jun/Aug/Oct).
Totton repair cafe is run by one of our volunteers – for more details see their facebook page.
All Repair cafes run from 10.30-13.00. Just turn up for repair or a cuppa! We welcome cash donations. Note that cafes at Freemantle and Shirley are generally quieter, so if you don’t want to wait so long to be seen, bring your repair to one of these!
Full list of dates on our home page
Sign up to our newsletter for updates on repair cafe
Also see the video below about our activities made by film students at Solent University who attended our Repair Cafe events during 2021. We thank them for creating it.
Get Involved – Volunteers Needed
We always welcome more volunteers, both repairers and general helpers so assist with the smooth running of the event. We particularly need additional reception help at Freemantle and with out Facebook page. Come along to one of the events or contact us via email on repaircafe[at]transitionsouthampton.org
Our Goals
- Reduce waste and save resources by repairing instead of throwing items away
- Reskilling by sharing repair skills
- Encouraging a circular economy
- Create a community hub for ideas and the local community, building community resilience
The Results
- Over 100 events held
- Nearly 3000 items tackled, 70% of which were repaired or advice was given
- We have reached at least 1000 people.