Petitions

What will we do when we receive your petition?

We will send an acknowledgement to you (the petition organiser) within ten working days of receiving the petition. This will let you know what we plan to do with the petition and when you can expect to hear from us again.

If we can do what your petition asks for, we may confirm that we have taken the action requested and the petition will be closed.

If the petition has enough signatures to trigger a Council debate, or a senior officer giving evidence, then we will confirm this and tell you when and where the meeting will take place.

If the petition needs more investigation, we will tell you the steps we plan to take.

If the petition applies to a planning or licensing application it will be considered as part of the wider consultation process. If you submit a statutory petition (eg one requesting a referendum on having an elected mayor), or on a matter where there is already an existing right of appeal, such as council tax banding and non-domestic rates, other procedures apply.

Our response to your petition

Our response to a petition depends on what the petition asks for. We may do one or more of the following:

• take the action requested in the petition
• consider the petition at a Council, Strategic and/or Neighbourhood Committee meeting
• hold an inquiry into the matter
• undertake research into the matter
• hold a public meeting
• hold a consultation
• hold a meeting with petitioners
• write to the petition organiser setting out our views about the request in the petition

If your petition is about something which we have no direct control over, we will consider making representations on behalf of the community to the relevant body. We work with a large number of local partners and where possible will work with these partners to respond to your petition.

The details of petitions with 100 or more valid signatures will be published on our website.