Just to update you all… passport arrived today. That’s 18 days from the online application and exactly 2 weeks from the text saying they had received my old passport.
Izzy x
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Son visited Peterborough on the 16th to renew his passport.
Paid an additional £177 odd to fast track the application.
Guaranteed to be renewed within a week.
He phoned the passport office today - after holding on for an hour and speaking with 6 people, son has been informed that his new passport has not even been printed yet.
He will now miss big family reunion this weekend.
Abi Tierney - Director General, HM Passport Office and UK Visas and Immigration - a complete waste of space.
At the minimum, demand the fee back plus travel and refreshment subsistence expenses for the interview required.
Send it as soon as you get the passport inhand and (1) officially demand it be escalated and (2) raise an official complaint, meanwhile.
Surprised as Peterborough has done 3 passports for me in the normal way very quickly
Some reassurance for those about to renew their UK passports…
Today (14/09/2022) a DHL courrier turned up with my brand new UK passport, exactly as expected from the various messages & tracking info I’d received.
I made the online application on 23/08/2022 & received notification & reference number by email the same day.
My old passport went in the post the following day.
An email told me that my old passport was received on 01/09/2022.
I received an email on 09/09/2022 saying that my application was approved.
A further email on 10/09/2022 told me that my passport had been printed & that it had been sent by secure courier.
As stated above the new passport then arrived on 14/09/2022, which to means it took three weeks & one day for the whole process.
P.S. Despite being issued on the day of the Queen’s death it still states that “Her Britannic Majesty"s Secretary of state requests & requires in the name of Her Majesty…” etc. I wonder if this makes it a rarity or, like stamps & cash, the new version will take time to appear?
My situation is identical to yours @Badger - dates and all! I raised the point about the issue date - actually after HM’s death I think since it was the 9th - in another thread. Can’t remember which though 
A further comment about the new passport, which I also raised in another thread. I said that even I didn’t recognise myself in the photo.When I showed it to my partner later today, he agreed. The hair and everything is as the (pretty horrible) one I submitted but the jaw shape is quite different and overall I think I may be in for 10 years of border challenges, or at least funny looks, assuming I live that long…
Fortunately mine looks as ugly as the one I sent in, which is actually a good likeness 
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Got my kids their first UK passports this year, all pretty simple (except the need for certified translations of certificates etc.). On a par with French carte d’identité and passeports but everything done on-line with UK ID.
My french DIL wanted to get a passport for her and the nipper (2 ) and had to attend an interview together last week at the mairie in a nearby town that deals with passport applications. Basically to make sure they were who they were applying for.
Yep, it’s still done face-to-face at the mairie, cartes d’identité and passeports, armed with your timbre fiscal (which I can sell to you in my tabac 
), photos and ready for finger printing.
I’m in the process of renewing mine - the online process is very simple indeed, the only problematic thing was the photograph which wanted chest and shoulders, and kept telling me it was a poor image. In the end I scanned my passport photograph from a supermarket cabin photo machine, and submitted that which was just a headshot only, and although it was relatively low resolution, that came up as ‘good’ and was accepted.
I delayed returning my old passport for a week, because of the timing with Royal Mail strikes, and then sent it with La Poste using an insurance option/tracking. It got there promptly. About a week later their system updated to say they’ve received it, and then just under a week after that I was told my new one was printed and now it’s currently on its way to me.
Probably not the right place to post, but my UK passport expires early next Feb with several France / UK trips planned including December - cue Madame panic, but review of UK gov site says you don’t need any ‘extra’ time on a passport with a CdS - correct?
So I could return France day before expiry and renew from France, OR if in UK for a few weeks renew in UK? Hopefully wouldn’t take too long renewing UK in Dec / Jan.
Finally I wonder if there are any temp travel docs for frontaliers, as weekly commuting would be ‘interrupted’?
I suppose the same issue must arise for e.g. flight crew / pilots / ferry workers
I think someone might suggest - apply the fast track / next day route but surely all the above don’t have to do that?
Or maybe they have two passports, like diplomatic staff?
My experience, during the current UK passport office strike and France postal worker strikes, has almost been identical, but a record breaking 2 weeks and 4 days. Yay!
I can only think the UK passport workers realise and are sensitive to France bureaucracy requirements for documentation.
Mine still says ‘Her Britannic Majesty’ but may be from the last of the stock because the perforated numbers at the base of the pages appear scorched and discoloured. That, and the photo resembles a rabbit caught in the headlights.
Just as well I have no plan to voyage out of France during the next decade.
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My OHs passport photograph looks just like that, and it’s also very “Prisoner cell block H” 
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My late husband’s last passport had him looking like someone who would be at home in Dartmoor.
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A pony?
That would be on Dartmoor
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Well not if he was tunnelling his way out LOL. Yes, slip of grammar there, I find english getting a bit hazy after all the years here and when talking to siblings I tend to slip back into yokel-eeze to match them. (Bit like Gerald on Clarksons Farm)
He would need the pony to get away on methinks. 
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