ok polly thanks i have just been reading another thread and someone started qeueing at 6.30 im glad i read that as we didnt plan turning up that early but it looks like we will have to

decided to use one of the recomended agents for birmingham luckily the one in our area is just 5 mins away from where we live i phoned him and he is going to birmingham early tomorrow he called round to collect our applications and charged £40 each so fingers crossed now that they are back in time he said it will take 2 weeks and we fly on the 14th nov anita and john

can anyone tell me weather there is a visa surgery in Manchester on the 3rd or the 4th November please .toe

Here is the list with dates for 2007
......................................................
Blackburn
15.12.2007
Banger Street Community Centre, Norwich Street, Blackburn, Lancashire Tel.No.01254-691551
....................................
Bradford
24.03.2007
18.08.2007
06.10.2007
Hindu Cultural Centre
321 Leeds Road, Bradford -BD3
Tel.01274543145/01274725923
.................................
Batley
28.07.2007
Al-Hikmah Cebtre, Hyrstlands
28-Track Road, Batley,
West-Yorkkshire WF1 77AA
Tel.01924500555
.......................................
Coventry
03.02.2007
05.05.2007
30.06.2007
11.08.2007
27.10.2007
Nanksar Gurdwara
Guru Sikh Temple, 224-226 Folehill
Road, Coventry VC1 4HW
Tel. No.02476220434/02476220805

Indian Community Centre Association,
Cross road, Foleshill, Coventry
CV6 5GP
Tel.02476680899
........................................
Huddersfield
17.11.2007
4.8.2007
Sikh Leisure Centre, Prospect Street
Spingwood, Huddershled, HD1 2NX
Tel.No.01484450650
...................................
Leeds
20.01.2007
07.07.2007
08.09.2007
22.12.2007
Sikh Community & Sports Centre,
62-B, Tong Road, Armley, Leeds
LS12 ILZ
Tel. 01132636525
Sikh Community Centre
128, Chapel town Road, Leeds
LS7 (Tel.01132625645)
............................................
Leicester
17.03.2007
22.9.2007
3.11.2007
08.12.2007
Shri Lohana Mahajan Community Centre, Hildyard Road (Off-Roff Walk)
Leicester LE4 5 GG
Tel. 01162661367
............................................
Luton
21.04.2007
20.10.2007
Sanathan Sewa Samaj, Hereford Road, Luton LU4 OPS
Tel. 01582663414
............................................
Liverpool
25.8.2007
1.12.2007
The Hindu Cultural Organisation
253, Edge Lane, Liverpool L7 2PH
Tel. 01512637965
.........................................................
Manchester
14.07.2007
29.09.2007
Gandhi Hall, Brunswick Road,
Withington, Manchester, M20 9QB
Tel.01614451134
............................................................
Preston
13.01.2007
28.04.2007
Unity Community Centre, 5-6
Shepherd Street, Avenham Preston PR1 3RL
Tel. 01772825665
................................................................
Nottingham
06.01.2007
24.02.2007
13.10.2007
24.11.2007
Indian community Centre Association,
Rawson Street, New Basford,
Nottingham NG7 7FR
Tel.01159785985
..............................................................
Wolverhampton
27.01.2007
Guru Nanak Sikh Temple,
205-206 Lea Road, Pennfield,
Wolverhampton
Tel 019027710289
.........................................................
Gloucester
02.06.2007
1 Pullman Court, Great Western Road,
Gloucester GL1 3 ND
Tel. No.01452-311870
...........................................................

our friends are going for the first time with their brother and sister in law ,who have a time share in south goa ,in november. the in laws have been several times and have always gone to london to get their visas.my friend couldnt get the time off so sister in law got the train to london to get visas for all 4 (from southampton) got there for 8 am.the hci closed before she could get to the window for a ticket.a group of indians who had gone for visas went into the embassy and created such a fuss they reopened the window and issued tickets for the next week which my friends sister in law got and she returned and got visas after more time off work and more rail fares. this is madness.we are not going until feb but i feel like changing our holiday to somewhere else who wants our custom.this will be our 4th time and i know i dont really want to go elsewhere but it is so frustrating!!!

There is an updated announcement on the High Commission of India website today saying that postal applications for visas will be reinstated on the 5th Novenber, so poeple may want to hang on and wait a week before finding an agent to sort it for them

At last. They've finally seen sense!!

I agree! I agree!

I wonder if this is a short term 'fix' to the visa problem or if the HCI have finally realised that their actions may be damaging the tourist industry.

If they are going to reinstate postal applications permanently, I wonder what will happen to the agents - some of which (in my opinion based on what I've read on a number of websites), have been using the situation as a 'licence to print money' by hiking their fees higher and higher as the backlogs increased.

Polly

Reinstating postal applications as from 5th of November.

At last they have seen sense!!

http://www.hcilondon.net/visa/restoration-of-postal-visa-app.html

About time too, i rang an agent today who lives close by and uses Birmingham, they can not get any more applications processed before january !

I was about to ring my travel agent and see where else i could go,

Luckily i found the link on the when browsing the london embassey site, with a bit of luck Birmingham will follow suit

GM 06

Post deleted as it was a duplicate of above

GM 06

Excellent, that's handy I was going to apply for them on the 6th as we just come back from Bruges on the 5th.

Read it for myself. thank goodness for that. now perhaps we can put it to bed and talk about more important things, like the price of kingfisher beer or honey bee.!!!!
BOB

We travelled from Glasgow to Edinburgh on Friday morning to get our Visas. Left the house before 7 and its normally a 45 min journey, but very busy at this time in the morning so we didnt get parked in Edinburgh until 8.45 and we were outside the embassy at 8.55. Only 17 people in the queue in front of us. They opened the doors at 9 to let people sit inside and the consulate opened at 9.30.
From about 9-15 - 9.30 there was an Indian "gentleman" (quite obnoxious actually lol) giving out all the do and donts about the Visas. He was shouting out no one from Birmingham or London visas!!! Then he announced only 1 extra application per person and it could only be for a relative only ie mother, father, brother, sister, husband/wife or child. I had my friends Visa application with me and her partners.
Everyone in the Edinburgh consulate queues the wrong way round, and its on the instructions of the consulate staff, god knows why, I cant answer that question (people who have visited the consulate will know what I mean). So everyone had to queue the wrong way round and go up and get their photos stapled onto their application, it was bedlam and in between all this he was shouting out orders and instructions. He asked me how many applications and I told him 4 in total and I said for sister and brother-in-law, he looked at me a bit strangely and obviously didnt believe me but he said Oh ok then!!!
Apart from all that we were out the consulate for 10.40 and we were told to call back after 4pm (as normal) to collect. We arrived at 3.40 and were 8th in the queue, however, they did not open the doors til 4.15 but we were still out for 4.30, complete with our 4 visas - yippee!!!!
All in all, not as bad as I expected.
A word of caution tho for anyone going to the Edinburgh consulate. You must be INSIDE queuing for 11.30 or you will not get in. He made this very clear to everyone. It does say on the posters 12.30 but he said you must be inside the consulate itself for 11.30 to give them time to processs your application for 12.30. For you and direct relatives only. There was a man in the queue from Northern Ireland. He said he had phoned and they told him his application would be accepted in Scotland. Also there was an English man in the queue who was not resident in Scotland but was working in the area and couldnt get back to England. Much to my amazement they agreed to process both these applications, so they cant be all that bad!
Good luck to everyone applying soon, at least the postal applications are starting again, so it should help and ease peoples worries a bit.

No explanation for the farcical situation they caused, no apology for the additional disruption, stress, expense etc., and now they re-instate the postal service. Thanks for doing so HCI but why oh why did you change things in the first place. If it aint broke don't fix it

What plonkers

fizzy2

they changed things in the first place because they had foreseen the postal strike long before it happened!

I note that it is just London who have restored and not Birmingham.

It seems that way at the moment Fiona, hopefully the others will follow suit. People living in the South of England were also the ones having the most difficulties because they do not have the visa surgeries.

yes- I would imagine that it would make sense for Birmingham to follow- but we'll see