An acknowledgement will be sent to the petition organiser within 10 working days of receiving the petition. It will let them know what we plan to do with the petition and when they can expect to hear from us again. It will also be published on our petition page.

 

If we can do what your petition asks for, the acknowledgment 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 (see below), or a Portfolio Holder or senior officer to speak on the matter at Council or Scrutiny Committee, then the acknowledgement 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.

 

All petition organisers will be given the opportunity to speak for up to five minutes on their petition, when it is considered at any appropriate Council body to which it has been referred. For clarity, this includes the provision for organisers of petitions of over 2,000 signatures, to do so at the appropriate Council body to which it has been referred, as well as the ability to address the full Council when initially submitting the petition.

 

If the petition applies to a planning or licensing application; is a statutory petition (for example 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, those other procedures will apply.

 

To ensure that people know what we are doing in response to the petitions received the details of all the petitions submitted to us will be published on our website, except in cases where this would be inappropriate.