Okay, so it wasn't my proudest moment. Having spent months lecturing anyone who even hinted at the prospect of foreign travel, or to that matter anyone who would listen, about the importance of checking their passport expiry date, I then discovered mine was out of date.
I hadn’t planned on going anywhere anytime soon. Terrified by Covid and the restrictions that went with it, a staycation was again on the cards. However, with the cost of holiday cottages in the UK matching and often exceeding the cost of jetting off, coupled with the bravery of those around me packing their bags for adventures and new experiences overseas plus, more importantly returning unscathed and Covid free, the decision was made. After all, school holidays were coming so it was the perfect time.
Now to the passports. ‘Just check the dates’ I’d shouted to my other half. ‘All okay but yours’ came the reply. Hilarious, but this wasn't a joke. Mine expired in May 2022. I'm still not sure where those 10 years went but true enough there, printed clearly, was the expired date.
READ MORE: UK passport waiting times and how to fast track your application
Head to the government website and you'll soon discover that renewing your passport will cost you £75.50 if you do it online or £85 if you fill in a paper form. You'll also see that you're advised to allow 10 weeks to receive your passport.
My discovery was made at the end of June around five weeks before the start of the school holiday and my annual leave. Was I feeling lucky? Absolutely not. So what were the options. Fast track was the only answer. Now there are two choices when it comes to fast tracking. The one week fast track service means you'll be £142 lighter (£122 for a child passport) but you'll get your passport within a week of your appointment at the passport office. Alternatively, you can use the online premium service which would mean applying, paying and booking the appointment online (note you can't apply online with the one week service) but you'd receive your passport at your passport office appointment. The drawback, a whopping £177. Needless to say the one week service looked more appealing.
So easy then. Well yes, in theory. However, the passport office is under immense pressure at the moment. As travel is back on the agenda for many and the number of people applying to renew or obtain their first passport is huge.
Responding to a debate instigated by Stephen Kinnock, Aberavon MP on the HM Passport Office backlog, Kevin Foster, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, said: "Prior to the pandemic, Her Majesty’s Passport Office routinely processed approximately 7 million passports each year. Due to Covid-19 and the necessary restrictions on international travel, only 4 million people applied for a British passport in 2020 and 5 million in 2021. " He went on: "...that means that we will soon have dealt with more passports in the first half of this year than in the entirety of last year."
Adding to the explanation of the situation, he said: "This year, many customers who delayed their applications are returning. It is therefore expected that 9.5 million British passport applications will be made this year, which will require a record output. That is a major surge in demand that we are planning for and have dealt with".
So, how is that panning out? My experience was that while the process is relatively simple, depending upon where in the country you live, there are still elements of the fast track system one week system that slow you down.
For a start, you'll need to pop to the post office to pick up the application form. This can't be done online. You'll also need to book an appointment at the passport office. Now there are two issues here. There isn't a passport office in Nottingham and getting an appointment at the office closest to your home may add to the time scale.
Passport offices include Peterborough, Newport, London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Durham and Belfast. Peterborough is the closest to Nottingham but it is still around an hour and 20 minutes drive from Nottingham city centre and there's no guarantee you'll get an appointment when you need it. The earliest appointment available at Peterborough was 15 days (11 working days) following the point at which I'd paid and requested an appointment. In the end, I opted to go a day later because that suited me and I figured I'd still have time to receive my passport before travelling even if there was a delay.
Chatting to passport seekers in the queue when I eventually made the trip I discovered desperate would-be travellers were opting for the first available appointment regardless of where it was, within reason. The two people directly in front of me in the line had both travelled from London as their local office didn't have appointments soon enough. This wasn't unusual according to MP Stephen Kinnock when raising questions about the system. "Some applicants are having to travel the length and breadth of Britain to get an appointment. One man had to travel all the way from London to Belfast to get his passport sorted."
So, the day had eventually come and arriving at the passport office with paper application form in hand, along with expired passport, two passport photographs, and a fast track appointment in place, I wondered which queue to join. At the front of the glass-fronted corner building was a queue of people baking in the sun waiting to talk to a frazzled Passport Office employee on the door. This was the 'just turn up' queue of applicants all keen to ask a question or plead their case for an on the day passport. Listening to some of the tales, and seeing the emotion and frustration bottled up in that brought the realisation that some of those desperate for one of Boris' 'beautiful new blue passports' weren't just there to secure a couple of weeks of sunshine and sea overseas. Some of these applicants were desperate for whatever reason. And yet one fleeting conversation with possibly the calmest person in the queue was a person stranded in the UK after deciding to update their passport while here pre-Christmas! I'd found myself alongside this person having gone into the building via a side 'appointment only' door, and through airport security style scanners and search beyond. However, I'd quickly been separated as the efficient staff motored through the applicants.
And it was from this point that the staff at the Peterborough office certainly demonstrated their skills. Security staff managed the queue. Reception staff checked applicants were holding the correct documents and examined the passport photograph for size and clarity, and then issued a deli counter style ticket and directed me to the rows of waiting area seats.
Alongside the seats was a row of booths where processing staff sat. The BBC News channel played to the waiting audience and a further screen listed the numbered ticket being served, flashing up the next appointment and booth number in the style of a McDonalds pick-up service.
I was number 479. The screen showed 485. Exactly 30 minutes later I was up. And precisely two minutes after that I was out the door. I'd handed over my documents, watched the staff member check them, received a sheet confirming a reference number and the date my application was submitted, and by the time I'd popped that in my bag and looked up I was being told the passport would be within me in a week's time. Five days later (three working days) a text arrived to say I'd receive the new passport within a few days and the next a text was delivered to say it would arrive that day. And, true to their word, there it was, through the letterbox six days after my visit. Drama averted.
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