Bath’s innovative Share And Repair Shop has relocated to a larger site in the city centre – a move that will enable it to expand its services.
Share and Repair aims to improve the environment for everyone by changing behaviours. At the same time it is seeking to build a community that offers opportunities for people to be involved and take control.
It offers practical solutions to the climate crisis with the opportunity to ‘borrow, don’t buy’, and ‘mend it, don’t end it’- a philosophy it says that many people strongly believe in but, until now, have not had the opportunity to put into practice.’
It has now moved from its original site in Broad Street to George Street and will reopen on August 11.
The charity will continue to offer a ‘library of things’ from which visitors can borrow a wide range of items ranging from a mitre saw to a body board, or have their favourite radio fixed at one of its popular face-to-face repair sessions.
The new site will also have the space to deliver more of its ‘how to’ workshops. These could include how to use your sewing machine, how to use hand and power tools, or how to maintain your bike.
Share and Repair founder Lorna Montgomery said: “We’ve been delighted by the response from people visiting the Broad Street shop over the past year. To quote one user ‘This is the best thing to happen to Bath since the Romans!’
“We are very grateful to Bath & North East Somerset Council for allowing us to prove our concept and realise that what we offer would be sorely missed.
“We will now have a stronger presence on George Street so we can give the people who haven’t made it back into Bath in the last year a chance to benefit from our services.
“We are also very excited to announce our forthcoming ‘How to reduce your carbon footprint’ in-store workshop as well as our new programme aimed at primary school-age children.”
Bath resident Lorna launched Share And Repair after the challenge of having yet another broken kettle. Her search for a solution to the throw-away culture led her to create the first Bath Repair Café in Bear Flat in 2017.
Since then it has run regular monthly cafés in Larkhall, Weston, Southdown and Peasedown St John with pop-ups in Foxhill and at the University of Bath as well as opening its city centre shop.
Its volunteers have fixed more than 1,200 items ranging from singing teddy bears, mobile phones, toasters and kettles, and dresses, skirts and jackets. Sentimental items such as model boats, weighing scales and old clocks have also been given a new lease of life.
