Stirling travellers left sweating over summer holidays due to passport delays
dailyrecord.co.ukPeople across Stirling left sweating over the delivery of new passports have been forced to miss trips and holidays altogether due to delays.Stirling’s MP Alyn Smith says he has been inundated with messages from desperate constituents scrambling to get their passports in time to sunshine breaks.Mr Smith has blasted HM Passport Office for a “continuing series of service catastrophes” over recent months.He said that a total of 72 constituents from across Stirling have reported receiving slow, disorganised and poor service – with some forced to miss out on trips.The lifting of Covid-19 travel restrictions has seen a sharp increase in foreign travel, with airports and travel companies struggling to meet demand.The performance of the Passport Office has come under increasing scrutiny, as orders are lost, delays are frequent and communication often late or confused.One Stirling resident who was left stressing over absent passports was Leanne Wilson.
She says that she was left physically unwell due to the continuing delays of her family’s application to renew their passports.Despite applying months ahead of time, Leanne felt the paperwork fell into a “black hole”.She said: “I honestly couldn’t believe how poor a public service could be until I underwent this process.
I really feel for the frontline staff who are having to put up with extremely stressed applicants, but it’s beyond a joke.“Both my husband and son’s renewals were dealt with in completely separate offices, in different ends of the UK, despite both applying at the same time.
My emails went unanswered, calls were fruitless and it took the intervention of Alyn Smith to push the issue along and get a resolution.“We eventually received the passports with just days to
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