PRIOR to reading Thursday’s paper (Echo, Mar 7), my wife and I had our passports ready to visit France next month.

We then discovered that while we each have over 15 months before our passports run out, come next month it will be just under that figure – and that includes the nine months carried over when we last got our passports renewed. In discounting those nine months, we've got slightly less than six months remaining.

So we checked with the Government website which, sure enough, advised that we need new passports to go to France.

We've had to complete renewal applications and send off our passports using guaranteed next day delivery to allow for slightly more than three weeks for the HM Passports to send us new ones.

We also had to send them to different offices, costing twice as much.

The upshot is we've lost 15 months from our passports and now have the worry about whether the new ones will be back in time for our booked holiday!

And rather ironic given the supposed friendship of the EU. Had we been going to a non-EU country, the problem wouldn't have existed.

So in thanking The Northern Echo for advising of the problem, why hasn't the Government loudly pointed this out before and saved people a lot of worry and concern?

Another Brexit problem swept under the carpet maybe!

Ian Thompson, Spennymoor