E-Petitions

The Council welcomes E-Petitions which are created and submitted using the link below. E-petitions allows information to be made available to a potentially much wider audience than a traditional paper based petition.

Anyone who lives, works or studies in the area can submit or sign an E-Petition.

The petition organiser will need to provide us with their name, postal address and e-mail address. You will also need to decide how long you would like your petition to be open for signatures - most petitions run for six months, but you can choose a shorter or longer timeframe, up to a maximum of 12 months.

The Council's response to a petition will depend upon what a petition asks for and how many people have signed it. If an E-Petition contains 500 signatures or more, it will be debated by the Full Council unless it is a petition asking for a Senior Council Officer to give evidence at a public meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

Deadlines for receipt of petitions containing 500 signatures or more requiring debate at Council are required at least 10 working days in advance of the meeting. If a petition is received less than 10 working days before a Council meeting, the petition will be debated at the following Council meeting.

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, other procedures apply. If your petition is about something over which the Council has no direct contract (for example, the local railway or hospital), we will consider making representations on behalf of the community to the relevant body. The Council works with a large number of local partners and where possible will work with these partners to respond to your petition. If we are not able to do this for any reason, we will set out the reasons for this to you.

Select an earlier date range below to find completed E-Petitions and responses from the Council.

There are no current ePetitions

Guidelines for Submitting an E-Petition

E-Petitions submitted to the Council must include a clear and concise statement covering the subject of the petition stating what action the petitioners wish the Council to take, and the name, address and signature of any person supporting the E-Petition who lives, works or studies in Fenland.

E-Petitions should be accompanied by contact details, including an address, for the petition organiser, these contact details will not be placed on the website. If the petition does not identify a petition organiser, the Council will publish the response on its website.

If the Council feels it cannot publish your petition for any reason, we will contact you within this time to explain. You will be able to change and resubmit your petition if you wish. If you do not do this within ten (10) working days, a summary of the petition and the reason why it has not be accepted will be published under the 'Rejected Petitions' section of the website.

Petitions which are considered to be vexatious, abusive or otherwise inappropriate will not be accepted. In the period immediately before an election or referendum the Council may need to deal with your petition differently - if this is the case we will explain the reasons and discuss the revised teimsecale 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, but will write to you to explain the reasons.

Submitting an E-Petition

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

If the petition contains 500 signatures or more, the petition will be discussed at a Full Council meeting. The Council will endeavour to consider the petition at its next meeting, although on some occasions this may not be possible and consideration will take place at the following meeting. The petition organiser will be given five (5) minutes to present the petition at the meeting and the petition will then be discussed by councillors for a maximum of 15 minutes (unless such time is extended by majority vote of the Council). The Council will decide how to respond to the petition at this meeting. The petition organiser will receive written confirmation of this decision, which will also be published on the Council's website.

If the petition contains 500 signatures or more and asks for a Senior Council Officer to give evidence at a public meeting about something for which the officer is responsible as part of their job, the relevant officer will give evidence at a public meeting of the Council's relevant Overview and Scrutiny Committee. The Committee may decide it would be more appropriate for another officer to give evidence instead of any officer named in the petition - for instance if the named officer has changed jobs. It may also decide to call the relevant Cabinet member to attend the meeting. Committee members will ask the questions at this meeting, but you will be able to suggest questions to the Chair of the committee by contacting Member Services up to three (3) working days before the meeting.

All E-Petitions currently available for signature can be accessed from this page. When you sign an E-Petition, people visiting the E-Petition will be able to see your name in the list of those who have signed it, but your contact details will not be visible.

What can I do if I feel my petition has not been dealt with properly?

If you feel that the Council has not dealt with your petition properly, the petition organiser has the right to request that the Council's Overview and Scrutiny Committee 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 Committee 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 committee 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 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 five (5) working days. The results of the review will also be published on the Council's website.

Disclaimer

This Council accepts no liability for the petitions on these web pages. The views expressed in the petitions do not necessarily reflect those of the providers.