WELLINGTON – UK passport holders living in New Zealand will need to drop into their local post office when applying for a new passport.
From February 1, all UK passport applications will be made at a New Zealand PostShop, where staff will check the documents before sending them off to the British High commission.
The British High Commission in Wellington will only accept direct postal applications until March 1, 2010. After that, they’ll be sent back unopened.
In July last year the UK established the new regional passport processing centre at the British High Commission in Wellington.
This is the largest passport processing centre outside UK and serves Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, processing some 80,000 passports a year
Some 20,000 applications for a British passport are received each year from applicants living in New Zealand and the High Commission estimates that the total number of New Zealanders or New Zealand residents with rights to a British passport is around 800,000.
The cost of a new British passport will be NZ$342.50
