By Lauren Liles on behalf of SLH
The Heatons Repair cafe celebrated its second anniversary at the session held 18th October, demonstrating that the local community really has taken on board that household items previously earmarked for the tip can be repaired and reused. In fact, the total number of repairs submitted over the nine two-hour sessions held from November 2024 to October 2025 totalled 306. Our success rate was 73.5%, or 225 successful repairs.
2024/2025 was a busy year with the launch of a series of basic DIY skills workshops which have proved immensely popular, the delivery of a repair cafe session to a leading national company based in Manchester, plus first aid training and PAT testing training for some of our volunteers.
Prevent, reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, dispose – it only takes a few small steps by lots of people to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill and lower our collective carbon emissions.
The emissions savings achieved by visitors to the Heatons Repair Cafe during our second year of operation equates to those from an average family car travelling 20,917 miles.
The combined skills and enthusiasm of Heatons’ Men in Sheds, Sustainable Living in the Heatons, St Pauls church plus another twenty-one local residents who have given up their time to volunteer once a month to repair items and help put them back into circulation has made this possible.
For further information contact: heatonsrepaircafe@slheatons.org. If you would like to become a volunteer and have a particular skill let us know.
NB the November session was the final session for 2025.