Petitions

Submitting a petition

This is a summary of the council’s petition scheme. The full scheme can be viewed in the constitution of the council, Part 4, Section 1(a) from page 179.

Wirral Council welcomes petitions and recognises that petitions are one way in which people can let us know their concerns. You can send us a paper petition or set up an electronic petition (e-petition online).

We expect all petitioners and signatories, who may be of any age, to live, work or study in the area covered by Wirral Council. For this reason, we require all petitioners and signatories to provide the full postcode of either their home address or the address of the organisation they work or study at when submitting a paper petition or signing an e-petition via the council’s website.

There is an expectation that supporters of a petition which is presented via a website external to the council also live, work or study in Wirral and supporters of such petitions are encouraged to include their postcode.

What to include

Petitions submitted to the council must include:

• a clear and concise statement covering the subject of the petition
• what action the petitioners wish the council to take
• the name, contact details and postcode of the petition organiser so that we can contact them to explain how we will respond to the petition
• the name and signature of any person supporting the petition and, when submitting a paper petition or signing an e-petition via the council’s website, the full postcode of either their home address or the address of the organisation they work or study at

The subject of a petition

Petitions must relate to what the council does or relate to an improvement in the economic, social or environmental well-being of the area covered by Wirral Council. The contact details of the petition organiser 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.

When and where to send a petition

Petitions should be submitted at least 10 working days before the meeting at which you would like the petition to be presented at which the Mayor (or Chair of the meeting) will exercise final discretion.

There are two ways to send a petition, either online (e-petition) or post a paper form:

• submit a new ePetition
• view current ePetitions
• view rejected ePetitions

Paper petitions

You can download a paper petition form and post it to the address below:

Reasons why we do not accept some petitions

We may not accept a petition if it:

• applies to an issue where separate rules exist, including: a planning or licensing application, a statutory petition (for example requesting a referendum on having a directly elected mayor), or on a matter where there is already an existing right of appeal, such as Council Tax banding and non-domestic rates. Further information on this is available on the Wirral Council’s consultation website where general information on how you can express your views is available
• is considered to be vexatious, abusive or otherwise inappropriate
• is substantially the same as a petition that has been responded to by the Council within the previous six months
• is received immediately before an election or referendum
• does not follow the guidelines set out above

What we will do with petitions

We will send an acknowledgement to the petition organiser within 10 working days of receipt, setting out what we plan to do with the petition and when they can expect to hear from us again.

E-petitions will also be published on our website.

Petitions can be referred to particular relevant meetings if received in time, where the organiser can present them, and if a petition contains more than 5,000 signatures, it will be debated by the full council at a future meeting.