Why repair?

We repair to share skills and to reduce waste

Fixing things makes us happy, and it’s great to see the smiles on our visitors’ faces when much-loved items are mended. We hope that developing a repairing culture in our community will enable people to save money and keep using the things they own for longer, while reducing landfill and helping to look after the planet that is our home.

We believe everyone should have the right to repair their possessions. Not only would it make the most sense for the environment, it would also create jobs and answer consumers’ wishes for longer lasting products. 

This is why the Repair Cafe organisation has joined the Right to Repair European campaign! A coalition of more than 90 organisations, from 19 European countries, fighting for longer lasting and more repairable products, and to make repair the norm.

Here’s what some of our volunteers and visitors have to say:-

It’s much better to repair and reuse than buy a new one. This morning I took my Dyson vacuum cleaner to Chorley Repair Cafe. It had stopped picking up on carpet but was ok on the hard floors (the roller inside the sweeper had stopped rotating). Dyson would repair it by sending me a new sweeper head at a cost of £60. Adam at the repair cafe stripped it down, cleaned it out, added some lubricant and put it back together. The hardest part was getting into it, obviously Dyson would prefer you to think it’s not possible and buy the new part. Adam persevered and took great care not to damage anything. As we were chatting we agreed that these things are designed to only last a few years, but in actual fact nothing was broken, it just needed a bit of clean out and loosening up. Perfect solution – cheaper and much more environmentally friendly than simply buying a new part. Thanks Adam!
– Visitor

Thank you to your wonderful volunteer Chelsea for repairing my daughters coat. It’s as good as new now. Very well organised. We’re thrilled to have this event available on our doorstep on a monthly basis. I will be back with my electricals, clothes and furniture for repair in the future.
– Visitor

Facts and figures
You can see how many items we have repaired since January 2024 by finding Chorley Repair Cafe on the Repair Monitor website. We log all the items brought to our repair sessions on this website, so you can see what the most common products, brands and appliances are, plus our success rate compared to other Repair Cafes around the world.