Mending our ways: how two Notts locals founded a national repairs directory

At certain points in our lives, many of us throw away broken or faulty possessions which could just as easily have been fixed. In the fast paced world of today, it’s difficult to resist that urge – innumerable companies are battling to sell us what they say is the next best thing, while we often feel too busy to make that extra bit of effort and give our possessions an extended lifespan. 

When Notts-based repair professionals Ally Booker and Gemma Broad recognised this problem, they decided to found We Are Repairs: an online directory of repairs professionals, and it’s seen huge success since. 

At the time of writing, over 3000 businesses across the UK are listed, and available to contact in as quick and convenient a way as possible – you can go to the website, type in the object you want to repair, along with your location, and you’ll get contact details for everyone locally to you who can help. It’s a simple, but amazingly effective way of kicking down that mental barrier we all sometimes have to a more sustainable mindset. 

Ally and Gemma met at the Ruddington Makers Market a few years ago. They became close friends – helping each other out work-wise when needed; exchanging their expertises in joinery and upholstery. Meanwhile, they would have coffee and bond over a shared frustration with how people treat their possessions.

“We helped each other grow as independent businesses, but also had rants about how frustrating it was that people were throwing really good furniture away, and buying new stuff that isn’t anywhere near the same quality,” says Gemma. “We got to a stage where we said, ‘Right, we either stop moaning about this or do something about it’, because it was dominating our conversations.”

It’s hard to deny that, towards 2020, the way in which people talk about sustainability and environmentalism shifted. It became less about individual responsibility for creating a greener society, and more about creating a wholly ‘different society’ in the first place.

With environmental NGOs wanting stricter ‘green regulations’ on businesses, the onus for a sustainable output moved more so to them, with people like Dutch businessman Paul Polman, and of course Greta Thunberg, saying, in so many words, that “businesses should thrive by fixing the world’s problems, not creating them.”

As such We Are Repairs is definitely a website that was ‘born of the moment’. Visit it, and you’ll see some pretty scary statistics about the ‘linear economy’ and its ‘throwaway culture’. Each year, the UK throws away 22 million pieces of small furniture, while globally 92 million tonnes of textile waste appear each year – the equivalent of a truck full of clothing every second. 

For Ally and Gemma, however, it’s not the consumer’s responsibility to ‘solve’ these issues but instead avoid the pervasive corporate greenwashing which is exacerbating the problem. 

“Yes there are real issues with our throwaway culture,” says Ally, adding, “but that’s because we’ve been built to accept it. We’re taught that convenience is key, and that it’s easier to discard things and get something new.”

“When you look behind the green washing marketing, a lot of the policies promoted as eco-friendly have no substance to them whatsoever,” adds Gemma. “They turn that into another money making opportunity. The independent business is the people first, not profit first.”

With the current way that economics are going, it’s high time for a website like We Are Repairs. Through the UK there’s a general sense that product production cost, quality and lifespan are all fast decreasing in tandem.

“When you buy a piece of furniture from a high street stall, you don’t really look at where they’ve cut corners to increase their profit,” says Gemma. “There’s certain ways that chairs should be built to make them comfortable for a long period of time. But when you take pieces of furniture off, labels underneath will say: ‘do not sit on the arm of this chair’. But it’s a chair! You should be able to sit on any part of it! I think this goes across life – the diminishing quality of things while prices keep going up.” 

But despite the doom and gloom, repairing is something that is still very much ‘in the zeitgeist’. Back in 2024, the Sustainable Consumer reported that through 2024 56% of people had fixed or repaired a product, not replaced it. Ally and Gemma also think that We Are Repairs could help revitalise age-old forms of craftsmanship.

“It’s really important – especially with things like stained glass, and people who fix clocks and watches – a lot of that is a dying skill, and a really important heritage skill,” adds Ally. “The more we support those industries, the more it’s going to create green skilled jobs. There’s so much potential for growth in that industry – we want it to become more accepted as a solution to so many problems.”

And what’s more, setting aside the sustainability talk, getting stuff repaired is proven to be one of the most emotionally uplifting things you can do. Ally and Gem have heard as much since founding We Are Repairs – particularly in one case, when a toy repairer called Conrad, from West Sussex, had a customer contact him via the directory. 

“This customer got him to fix an old, N gauge train,” says Ally. “He was so happy with how he did, that he got him to repair another one of his childhood toys. He’s in his late 60s, or early 70s. It’s a toy that he and his brother fondly remember playing with. And he’s so thrilled with the transformation that he’s going to give it to his brother on Christmas day. I think it’s stuff like that that’s really special.”

It’s a lovely anecdote, which illustrates how effectively We Are Repairs tackles multiple aspects of the ‘linear economy’ issue. When it comes to big problems, Notts people have always brought a ‘do-it-yourself’ attitude to solving them but regardless, Ally and Gemma have certainly set a shining example for sustainability advocates to come.

wearerepairs.com