A COUPLE who have spent the last ten years trying to sort out a muddle with their postcode up were celebrating this week after finding the mix up may finally be over.

Over the years, John Dean and his wife, Mary have had their phone number changed without their consent, their water cut off and post repeatedly delivered to the wrong address.

However the confusion appears to have now been solved.

“Last week we got a wrong delivery, but that’s all. We shouldn’t have our telephone or our water disconnected anymore,” said a relieved Mr Dean.

The couple live at 12 Marshfield Way, but around ten years ago a new street was built off Marshfield Way called The Paddocks, Marshfield Way, which also has a number 12.

This has repeatedly resulted in chaos. When the family at The Paddocks ordered a set of garden furniture the table went to the right address while the chairs ended up at the Deans’.

Further problems resulted in their phone being disconnected, which caused them great distress as they were unable to contact their son who was seriously ill in Scotland.

“That was terrible and a real strain on us,” said Mrs Dean.

“There was nothing we could do. We couldn’t contact anybody.”

And when their daughter was abroad during a terrorist attack, she had tried to call home but couldn’t get through.

“The problems started when they built The Paddocks,” said Mr Dean.
“If they hadn’t have put Marshfield Way in the name and just left it as The Paddocks instead, none of this would have happened.”

But now Karl and Lynsey Ballard, who live at 12 The Paddocks, have a new postcode and Mr and Mrs Dean have been allowed to keep their old one.

“It’s not perfect, we still get the odd bit of wrongly-addressed mail, but it’s certainly not as bad as it was,” said Mr Dean.

Mrs Ballard said that because both addresses contain the name 'Marshfield Way', they have to specifically state their postcode to ensure their house is correctly identified.

“I am very happy now we’ve got a new postcode. Hopefully we shouldn’t have any more problems,” said Mrs Ballard.

A spokesman for Royal Mail said: “We are pleased that this matter has been resolved. We worked with the local council and our address management unit to re-code the impacted addresses and we have written to all residents to advise of their new postcodes.”