Petition Guidelines

If you wish to submit a petition to the Council, please use the following guidelines.

Petitions submitted to the council must include a clear and concise statement covering the subject of the petition.
This statement should include the action that the petitioners wish the council to take.

Petitions should include the name and address and signature of any person supporting the petition and should be accompanied by contact details, including an address, for the petition organiser
This is the person we will contact to explain how we will respond to the petition.
The contact details of the petition organiser or any signatories will not be placed on the website.
If the petition does not identify a petition organiser, we will contact signatories to the petition to agree who should act as the petition organiser.

Petitions that are considered to be vexatious, abusive or otherwise inappropriate will not be accepted.
In the period immediately before an election or referendum, we may need to deal with your petition differently - if this is the case we will explain the reasons and discuss the revised timescale which will apply.
If a petition does not follow the guidelines set out above, the council may decide not to do anything further with it. In that case, we will write to you to explain the reasons.

Valid signatures on a petition submitted to the council are from people of any age who live, work or study within the area.

What if I feel my Petition has not been dealt with properly?

The petition organiser has the right to request that the Council's Overview and Scrutiny Panel review the steps that the Council has taken in response to your petition.
It is helpful to everyone, and can improve the prospects for a review, if the petition organiser gives a short explanation of the reasons why the Council's response is not considered to be adequate.
The Panel will endeavour to consider your request at its next meeting, although on some occasions this may not be possible and consideration will take place at the following meeting.
Should the Panel determine we have not dealt with your petition adequately, it may use any of its powers to deal with the matter. These powers include instigating an investigation, making recommendations to the Council's Executive and arranging for the matter to be considered at a meeting of the full council.
Once the appeal has been considered the petition organiser will be informed of the results within ten working days. The results of the review will also be published on our website.