I renewed my passport last week, no problem. it was due to expire on 1st March 2020. On 22 January we went to a Post Office which offers the digital service where they take your photo, do all the paperwork etc. Our new passports arrived in the post 6 days later. Fabulous service! Our old passports were returned (with corners sliced off) 2 days later.
They sent text messages every step of the way to say they had received our passports, had accepted our photos, were printing our passports and finally they had been despatched.