A Kirkconnel couple have been forced to cancel their dream wedding abroad as chaos continues at the Passport Office.
Shaun Campbell and Fiona Cox said they “couldn’t take the risk” of waiting for Shaun’s passport to arrive in time and will tie the knot locally on Saturday instead.
Groom-to-be Shaun, 30, also had to cancel his stag-do to Brussels with pals.
He said: “I applied to renew my passport 12 weeks ago and thought because there was no changes that had to be made, I’d get my new one in plenty of time for my stag-do and then our wedding in Turkey.
“As the stag got closer and I still hadn’t received it. I finally managed to speak to someone at the Passport Office who told me there had been a delay because of a glitch in the system and then that my documents had been scanned twice.
“I was supposed to be going to Brussels on July 4 so two days before I went to the office in Glasgow and queued from 7.45am.
“There were people there with their suitcases who were supposed to be flying within hours but still didn’t have their passport.”
Shaun, a charge nurse at Ayr Hospital A&E department, was finally told at 4.30pm he had no chance of getting his passport that day.
He said: “Fiona went up the next day and waited but again came home without it.
“I was supposed to be going on my stag-do the following day so it had to be cancelled.
“On the Friday I got a call saying it was ready to collect but they wanted an extra £100 to upgrade
it. I had to send my pal up to Glasgow to get it because I’d taken a shift at work.
“We realised a couple of weeks ago that we couldn’t take the risk of waiting to see if it arrived and we cancelled our wedding.
“We were absolutely gutted because we thought we’d be getting married in the sun and had everything planned. Now I’ve finally got my passport, we’ll still get to Turkey next Monday and won’t be thousands of pounds out of pocket like some other folk.
“The stress and anxiety it has caused has been horrendous.
“The Passport Office knew there would be a surge in demand after Covid but did nothing about it and now look what’s happened. It’s a joke.”
Thousands of other Scots have had their summer holiday plans plunged into chaos over a “mountain” of unprocessed passport applications.
The Home Office is understood to have put up to 4,000 applications for the travel document from several months ago to the back of the queue - processing new applications first.
Union bosses are demanding staff cuts from an already beleaguered Passport Office workforce are reversed so “better-trained” staff can handle the backlog. They also want the removal of a “clunky” computer system that is effectively keeping cases in the system instead of sorting them out.
A Public and Commercial Service (PCS) Union spokesperson said a planned 91,000 civil service job cuts must be halted immediately.
A spokesman said: “PCS members are working exceptionally hard with an outdated system in Glasgow.
“The government should stop the planned cuts to the civil service, buy up-to-date IT equipment and employ more better-trained and better-paid staff if it is serious about tackling the backlog.”
