[ben0x539]

I get the impression that they want to ensure people choose meaningful short(ish) URLs, rather than getting random alphanumeric suffixes, because they are invested in the trust placed in the gov.uk domain and it not looking like phishing bullshit. So it makes sense to me that they want to curate the namespace rather than making it either self-service or fully automated.

[joshgree88]

Yeah absolutely but you can write a tool that does that and doesn't require 2 weeks wait time... Its just a crazy example of gov bureaucracy!