Expediting return of passport/visa after successful appeal

[hopingforchange]

I won my Tier 1 (General) extension appeal on Wednesday last week. The Home Office's lawyer told us beforehand that he ‘wasn’t sure what argument he could make’ because he agreed that I had provided the right evidence in my original application. He then ‘reluctantly’ made one submission, which was that the UKBA wished to continue with the refusal, and the judge allowed the appeal on the spot. My lawyer told me an immediate decision is very unusual and showed how obviously wrong the refusal was. (What a waste of everyone’s time and money.)

I’ve now been 10 months without a passport and aside from wanting to travel for person reasons it’s causing me huge difficulties with work - having to do conference calls in the middle of the night because I can’t travel to meetings, for example. My employer is getting very frustrated and it’s creating risks of delays to delivery of the project I’m managing, which is largely based in Asia.

Given my experience of the UKBA to date, and stories in this forum of people waiting more than six months after a successful appeal for the return of their documents, I’m nervous about how much longer it’s going to take until I have my visa and passport in hand. I would ideally like to travel to meetings in 3 weeks’ time.

Could anyone advise how to expedite this process and get my passport and visa back within the next couple of weeks. Which address/number should I call/write to/fax? Should I book flights first so I have specific travel plans? Should I write to them personally or would it be better coming from my employer?

Thanks.