Special delivery service – a van on the lawn – Wokingham.Today

AT THE weekend, Ray and Barbara Brown, of Southlands Road in Wokingham, were not surprised to hear the familiar sound of a delivery being left at their home.

They were, however, somewhat shocked 10 or so minutes later when the door bell rang and Ray answered to find the delivery driver still there and a Royal Mail delivery van firmly stuck on their lawn.

Ray explained: “Instead of turning in our drive in the ample space, or reversing out, the driver chose to reverse onto our well-tended lawn.

“Because of the recent weather the ground was soft and he got stuck.”

He continued: “I understand that mishaps happen, but this was needless, and left us with a Royal Mail delivery van sunk axel-deep in churned-up mud on our lawn.”

Getting the van removed wasn’t straightforward.

“The biggest problem is that you have to make things happen yourself, and finding someone to speak to isn’t easy,” Ray said.

“I was 40 minutes on the phone trying to talk with the right person, before I was eventually sent to make a claim on another website.

“There wasn’t much response from senior management, and I had to do quite a bit of chasing myself to get the van removed.

“It doesn’t seem quite right, does it?

“For every bit of information you need, you have to wring it out.”

On Monday afternoon, the van was removed.

“The driver’s line manager, Dahlia, at Bracknell Royal Mail depot was very helpful, and we’d like to thank her for the support she gave us,” Ray said.

“It was Dahlia who actually got things moving and arranged for a local vehicle removal company to tow the van away.”

Ray says it’s difficult to imagine quite why the van driver reversed onto the grass.

“It’s a wide drive, and the van was only half way up it, so it would have been easy just to reverse back out onto the road,” he said.

“But you can clearly see that he backed the van straight onto the lawn, and there it stayed.

“He was very apologetic, though, so hats off to him for that.

“Now we’re just waiting for a quote to fix the lawn – and then we’ll need to complete a claim form for Royal Mail to assess and decide whether they will pay.”

A spokesperson from Royal Mail said: “Adverse weather conditions caused a Royal Mail van to become stuck outside a customer’s home. “This van has now been towed away.

“We apologise for the inconvenience caused and we are currently investigating.”