Why did I have to fly from London to Belfast to get a new UK passport?

I was forced to make a stressful journey to the only office where I could get an appointment in a strike

• Briton with valid passport barred from flight over Brexit rules

Discovering you urgently need a new passport during a lengthy Passport Office strike is bad news. Normally you can apply for a fast-track passport that can be collected within a week, or use the online premium service that can turn one around for you in a couple of days, but not when a quarter of Passport Office staff stop working for five weeks.

For me, the consequence of this was discovering I would have to take a flight from London, where I live, to Belfast to pick up my new passport. There were no appointments in England. And even though I was paying top dollar (£193.50 compared with £155 for fast-track or £82.50 for the normal service), the soonest in-person appointment I could get was 19 days later, on Tuesday 25 April. With work trips to Dubai and then Nice in the next couple of weeks, getting my new passport was a matter of urgency.