Bishop’s Stortford Town Council’s Brazier Trust backs foundation of Stortford Repair Café with £600 grant

Town councillors have backed the creation of a Stortford Repair Café by awarding a £600 grant to cover set-up costs.

Members sitting as Brazier Trust trustees agreed to support the new venture with funding for its first three sessions. The first will be on Saturday April 27 (2pm-5pm) at the Emmaus Centre at St James the Great Church, Thorley.

The Stortford Repair Café will be a pop-up where residents can take broken household items for repair by experienced volunteers, run under the auspices of the Bishop’s Stortford Climate Group.

The climate group, with 18 core members, has recruited around 15 volunteers for the café. The team has taken advice from Sustainable Sawbridgeworth, which operates a successful repair café in the town.

The aim is for it to run four Saturday afternoons a year. The £600 grant will cover hall hire, a £190 card reader for donations, refreshments and access to the Repair Café online system. The climate group expects the café to become self-funding by its fourth session.

The aim is for residents to save money and be more sustainable by giving broken items a new lease of life, diverting them from landfills and learning repair skills so that replacement items do not need to be manufactured and purchased.

The grant bid submitted to the town council said: “The Repair café will be covered by the insurance policy held by Friends of the Earth, which specifically includes repair cafés run by affiliated organisations (including Bishop;s Stortford Climate Group).

“All electrical items will be PAT tested by a qualified individual before being returned.”

The town council’s Liberal Democrat leader, Cllr Miriam Swainston, said: “I’m really excited about this project. Hopefully it will help reduce the amount we send to landfill.”