On Tuesday 6th October 2026, Circular Communities Scotland hosted the first ever Holyrood Repair Café, bringing together repair projects from across the country to share the power of community repair with MSPs and Scottish Government officials.
Sponsored by Lorna Slater MSP, the event gave attendees the chance to meet the people behind Scotland’s community repair movement, see repair skills in action and hear first-hand about what it takes to run a repair project in a local community.
Community repair projects provide a practical alternative to throwing things away and buying new. They help people keep household items, electricals, textiles and other belongings in use for longer, while making repair more accessible and affordable.
Repair projects also create opportunities for people to share skills, learn from one another and build confidence. They bring people together around a shared purpose, create volunteering opportunities and help communities develop practical knowledge that can be passed on.
Across Scotland, the scale of this work is growing. According to recent Share and Repair Network research, over the last year, more than 17,000 people visited local repair cafés and community repair services, with more than 13,000 items repaired.
The Holyrood Repair Café was an opportunity to put some of that work centre stage – and to show decision-makers the people and organisations making it happen.
Twelve Circular Communities Scotland member repair projects took part in the event, representing communities from the Highlands to Glasgow and beyond.
Alongside the practical demonstrations and conversations, the evening included contributions from Circular Communities Scotland Chair Naomi Johnson, Glasgow Repair Café’s Lauren Hooper and Linlithgow Repair Shop’s Lindsey Campbell, who shared their experiences of delivering community repair and the opportunities and challenges involved.
For MSPs, it was a chance to meet community organisations directly and hear about the difference their work makes. It was also an opportunity to consider what could help the repair movement grow and enable more people across Scotland to access these services.
The Holyrood Repair Café also provided an opportunity to highlight Circular Communities Scotland’s #GetReuseRight campaign, which is calling for stronger policies that recognise and support Scotland’s reuse, repair and sharing charities and social enterprises.
The event gave MSPs an opportunity to show their support for the campaign and hear directly from the organisations that would benefit from stronger support for community circularity.
Thank you to Scotland’s community repairers
The first Holyrood Repair Café would not have been possible without the members who gave their time, skills and experience to make the evening happen.
A huge thank you to Repair Café Edinburgh, Transition University of St Andrews, Linlithgow Community Development Trust, Repair Café Glasgow, Dairsie Repair Café, Creating a Sustainable Gryffe, Irvine Share and Repair, ILM Highland, Remake Scotland, The Edinburgh Remakery, Dunkeld and Birnam Repair Café, and Strathspey Works’ Grantown Remakery for joining us at Holyrood and representing the strength and diversity of community repair in Scotland.
Thank you, too, to Lorna Slater MSP for sponsoring and speaking at the event and being the first MSP to pledge to Get Reuse Right, to everyone who came along and took the time to meet our members, and to the Scottish Parliament team for helping us bring a repair café into Parliament for the first time. Thanks also to our photographer Becky from Open Aye for capturing the evening.
The evening was a reminder that Scotland’s circular economy is a key part of our work towards meeting our climate goals, with people with practical skills, communities supporting one another and organisations finding ways to keep valuable things in use at its heart.