Warning. Tesco and deliveries to flats

Something will have to be done about people who live in flats with regard to increased capacity for online shopping deliveries..

Also important is something will have to be done about people who live in flats, some without balconies, in view of the virus becoming endemic.

At government level.

The online shopping deliveries problem might be sorted by the installation of goods lifts added to the exteriors of blocks of flats.

Children's play areas could be provided by an entire floor taken out of residential use and made over for play, including growing plant life.

My Ocado driver brought my order up to my door. He rang the buzzer to let me know he was on his way. I propped the front door open then stood right at the end of the hall to talk to him and he stood back in the corridor for me to take the bags into the hall of my flat. Really good about allowing social distancing I was impressed. Haven’t been able to get another yet

You’re not asking much Alexa are you?
Installing goods lifts to the exteriors of existing blocks of flats?
Turning over a whole residential floor to a play area and plant growing?


How many £billions are you making available for this? And how many flat owners would lose their flats?
It just doesn’t stack up.

For reference Ocado and Waitrose ask you to advise if you are shielding but the general understanding is that bags are brought to just outside your door.
I would take this up with customer services.

I would take it up with Tesco’s customer service. They may be dealing with people who are literally unable to carry the shopping so they need to think again perhaps or assign more considerate drivers.

MawB, unless you have a better idea for relieving the people who live in high rise flats with no outside space you ought to hold your tongue.

There have been quite a few posts on Facebook about Tesco delivery drivers not entering blocks of flats and obviously customers have been unhappy but the response has always been the same. It’s up to the driver as to whether he/she enters a building. There is also the option to alert the driver if you are self isolating when you book your slot

Why can’t the drivers just phone or text when they arrive and tell customers they’re at the entrance to the block of flats and will leave the groceries there?

My Sainsbury's delivery was delivered to outside the front door of my house last week instead of bringing it to the kitchen as usual. They say it is for the safety of the driver as well as customers. It is a nuisance and extra work but am grateful I am managing to still get deliveries and that I live in a house.

jane ainsworth because that means an elderly person may have to walk down three or four flights of stairs to collect their groceries, probably having to make three or four trips to carry them back up. (also coming out of self-isolation if that is what they are doing, meeting people on the stairs etc).

It should be clear when ordering if that is going to be the process.

Alexa Fri 24-Apr-20 18:24:01
MawB, unless you have a better idea for relieving the people who live in high rise flats with no outside space you ought to hold your tongue
Alexa I have no intention of -as you so charmingly put it - holding my tongue when expressing an opinion on suggestions which seem to have no basis in reality.

You are Lucky if your order is actually delivered in bags. Sainsburys stoped using them both instore and for deliveries many months ago now. Tyey deliver to the doorstep in tye llastic crates, then expect the customer to unload the crates into bags or boxes of their own.
Having your front door open to the elements in the grip of winter whilst you struggle with dozens of items is no joke, at least Iceland deliver to us bagged up, although last nights delivery they appologised for, as they had ran out of bags at the shop.

Julia my weekly Sainsbury's order comes in plastic bags although they have run out of the usual orange ones and have been replaced by small black one's atm. Sainsbury's never stopped plastic bags in-store or for online deliveries they are still available but are chargeable @ 40p for an online delivery. You can give them back to the driver as they are given to your local foodbank.

Julia, we used to get Sainsburys deliveries without bags but they are using them again in lockdown, so that the driver can just drop and run. In fact ours are all being delivered now in Bags for Life, which we’re saving to give back later. The driver just waves at us through the window. Substitutions can’t be handed back either, which makes sense, though they will refund the cost if you’re not happy with them. It’s to be hoped that people don’t take unfair advantage of this policy.

My sympathies, Linsue. Delivery to individual flats is a problem that will be even more of an issue now. Are there not perhaps already existing lifts for goods only that the drivers could be given access to?

"Alexa I have no intention of -as you so charmingly put it - holding my tongue when expressing an opinion on suggestions which seem to have no basis in reality." Wrote MawB.

MawB Reality (whatever that is) is sometimes better understood from unusual perspectives.

PS I have lived in an old mansion that actually had food lifts from the basement kitchen up to the ground floor.

During times of national emergency governments can requisition buildings . A government should be able to requisition areas of tower blocks for play spaces and gardens to help to keep the occupants sane

My Sainsos delivery last Wed was bagged and he rang before stepping back.
Next week I have a huge order for me and (two others who cannot get slots) so just shy of £470 of food and drink to sort ( with gloved hands) Thank goodness no frozen stuff. Delivery cost 50p ?

The bags delivered here are the very thin plain white ones.

Why should drivers have to lug shopping up several floors OR make several journeys up n down stairs to fetch stuff from his van? He'd have to lock it between journeys up to your flat.
Be reasonable. They're people not donkeys.

Let's start planning goods lifts, shall we?

By the time they have got through the planning stages bearing in mind there are no council meetings pro tem, this may all well be over.

Linsue I am not without sympathy but I do think expecting a driver to lug everyone's shopping up several flights of stairs is unreasonable. He could have a dozen such deliveries to do.

Do you have a shopping trolley and are you able to use the lift?

in view of the virus becoming endemic

It went beyond that and was declared a pandemic on the 11th March 2020 by the WHO.

Add comment | Report | Private message Alexa Sat 25-Apr-20 10:14:25
PS I have lived in an old mansion that actually had food lifts from the basement kitchen up to the ground floor.
During times of national emergency governments can requisition buildings . A government should be able to requisition areas of tower blocks for play spaces and gardens to help to keep the occupants sane

There is a huge difference between a “dumb waiter” - which is common enough, and your suggestion of installation of goods lifts on the exterior of blocks of flats
Would that be including tower blocks? Have you any idea at all of the practical not to say architectural, financial and time implications?
And how do you think the tenants or owners of flats on your designated “play floor” of a block of flats might feel about the compulsory requisitioning of their homes?
I do prefer reality to pie in the sky.
Personally I would hope that deliveries could be made to the flat door, but timing comes into the equation, the security of the van and the crates of food which are unloaded when the driver parks up. Unless the customer is disabled there should be the possibility of compromise,- alternatively, give Tesco the elbow and use one of the other online delivery companies who seem to be more accommodating.

Children's play areas

Children are not encouraged to use play areas and they are blocked off for the time being.

I have found Tesco to be the best of the lot - in fact the only firm which responded positively and with whom I got a slot.

I don't live in a flat, though, and the bags get delivered outside the front door, the delivery driver rings the bell then retreats. Both drivers so far have been cheerful and lovely despite the pressure they are under.