PASSPORT panic should ease with passport extensions available free at main post offices.

Home Secretary Jack Straw this week eased holidaymakers' plight giving Leigh Post Office, Tyldesley's Johnson Street Post Office and Atherton Post Office in Market Street power to issue extensions.

It applies to passports about to expire, or those which have expired in the past five years (subject to proof of identity).

It applies to documents already including up to 16 year-olds but not for children and babies without existing paperwork.

Where the eldest child is 14 or more the family passport will be extended until that child's 16th birthday.

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