Jayne McCubbin from BBC Breakfast was at the Ruthin Repair Café last Saturday filming volunteers, including local resident and
Village Hall committee member Andrew Coomber. The Café has done work for Ysceifiog Village Hall in the past. The BBC Breakfast footage will broadcast on the morning of the 17th February and we hope to see you Andrew on TV. Well done Andrew we are very proud of you!
Ruthin’s Repair Café wrote about their visit from BBC breakfast and a typical day in the life of a Repair Café:
There was excitement in the air at this month’s Repair Café in the Naylor Neyland Centre as the BBC Breakfast team arrived to film for the uplifting, regular feature ‘Rise and Shine’. Jayne McCubbin and cameraman Kieran Tynan spent the morning interviewing and filming the volunteer fixers and the customers who had arrived at the Café to have their items fixed. Anne Lewis who organises the Café said, “We were very excited to be chosen to represent a successful Repair Café in North Wales, for the BBC Breakfast programme, as part of ‘Fix It February’. This initiative was launched by Repair Cafe Wales in 2025 and is a month-long campaign to inspire people across Wales (and beyond!) to repair one broken item instead of replacing it. Whether it’s a faulty toaster, a ripped pair of jeans, or a wobbly chair, ‘Fix It Feb’ is all about using the power of repair to help the planet, save money, and create connections through skill sharing”.
Customers brought in the usual range of household items for repair such as vacuum cleaners, kettles, laptops, heated hair rollers, clothing, and tools for sharpening, as well as more unusual things like a suitcase, clock, musical carousel and a mechanical toy steam engine from 1953.
The programme will be aired on BBC Breakfast on 23rd February at 7.50am and again at 9.25am. So, tune in!
Ruthin Repair Café is run completely by the volunteers who give up their time to fix items including jewellery, mechanical items, ceramics, guitar, flute and clarinet adjustments, electrical items, textile repairs and software support. Some of the team also make delicious cakes for the customers and volunteers and there is a team who organise the event, so everything runs smoothly.
It is one of the busiest, of 143 in Wales. And one of the 2500 worldwide. The first one in Ruthin was organised by Jozsef Vass in 2020. This February was the 52nd café. In that time 1600 items have been processed with a fix rate of 73% which is equivalent to an estimated cost saving of £98,000 and reducing landfill by nearly 5700 kilograms.
To date the total carbon emissions prevented by the work of the repair cafes across Wales has exceeded one million kilograms!
The next Repair Café is on Saturday 7th March from 10am – 1pm (last orders 12.30pm) at the Naylor Leyland Centre, Well Street, Ruthin.