Our story

The Refresh shop is in the Chiltern Shopping Centre and is open 6 days a week. It sells a range of arts and craft materials at low cost, because all the materials are donated by local people and businesses, to avoid it going to waste. When it first opened in June 2022, we were open just on Saturday afternoons, so a lot has changed, with the help of a dedicated team of volunteers.

The shop is run by Wycombe Environment Centre, a local charity that was set up way back in 2001 by the visionary local leader Frances Alexander, who understood the motto ‘think global, act local’. We also run the local repair cafe, hold lots of events, sell materials online, have a schools scheme and more besides!

The Refresh shop replaced the previous Council-run Wycombe Resource Zone, on  the Cressex Business Park. The Council provided funding through the Community Boards and its Waste Service to allow Refresh to be set up as a social enterprise. 

Funding was also attracted from the Council’s waste contractor, Veolia, and the Clare Foundation. More recently the project has attracted funding from the National Lottery and Garfield Weston, with local support too from the Penn Trust and the Roland Callingham Foundation.

Our shop lease runs to the end of 2025, and we are looking for a new premises so that we can continue to be a hive of activity for crafting and upcycling, with workshops and activities, helping us learn new skills, make new friends, bring communities together and enjoy living in a way that is lighter on the planet. Our ambition remains to cluster other share and repair, mend and lend services around the Refresh shop and repair café - building Refresh the Marketplace.