Passport farce as fast-track site crashes

THE fiasco over passport delays descended further into farce yesterday as the fast-track service crashed.

Millions are thought to have delayed renewing their documents during the pandemic and officials are struggling with a backlog of applications. The tenweek target for processing is repeatedly being breached, with applicants waiting up to five months.

The Passport Office offers a fast-track service that offers a one-week turnaround at the higher price of £142 for an adult passport and £122 for a child.

But holidaymakers desperately trying to use the service yesterday were greeted with a ‘system busy’ message.

The webpage on gov.uk added: ‘Sorry, we’re experiencing high demand for this service at the moment and the system is busy. Please try again later.’

It was displaying the message for most of yesterday morning and afternoon.

Under post-Brexit travel rules, UK travellers must have at least three months’ validity on documents, which threatens to put more strain on the system.

Heathrow boss John Holland-Kaye said: ‘It’s really disappointing to hear about delays. If it’s not resolved, it is going to mean that people can’t get away.’