Denbighshire County Council Petitions Scheme

We are required as part of the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021 to make and publish a scheme that sets out how we will handle petitions and e-petitions, with consideration given to the following:

How a petition may be submitted to the council
How and by when the council will acknowledge receipt of a petition
The steps the council may take in response to a petition received by it
The circumstances (if any) in which the council may take no further action in response to a petition
How and by when the council will make available its response to a petition to the person who submitted the petition and to the public

We are required to review the Petitions Scheme on a regular basis, and it is our intention to review this scheme at least once after every ordinary local (county council) election.

What is a petition?

A petition is a way of communicating with a person or organisation. Usually, the person or organisation receiving the petition will have decision-making powers.

A petition is usually set up by one person or organisation, and this person or organisation will collect signatures from other people or organisations who support for their proposal or campaign.

Petitions can be a good way of communicating the strength of feeling on a particular topic or encouraging people or organisations to make changes.

Who can set up a petition?

Anybody can set up a petition, and it can be sent to anybody.

Every petition requires a lead petitioner to be noted, who will act as a contact point for the petition. Here are the requirements that are necessary for the main petitioner:

The name of the main petitioner could be an individual who lives, works or studies within Denbighshire, a landowner / taxpayer or organisation located in Denbighshire.
The main petitioner must note the home / work / organisation address in full, and an e-mail address (if you have one) or contact information where any correspondence relating to the petition can be sent.

For petitions targeted towards Denbighshire County Council, we have set up the following contact details to receive petitions:

Email: petitions@denbighshire.gov.uk

Post: Democratic Services, Denbighshire County Council, PO Box 162, Ruthin, LL15 1YN

What can a petition be about?

Petitions can be about anything, but they should generally:

Be about an issue that affects people who live in, work in or visit Denbighshire
Be about an issue for which the Council has decision-making powers, or which affects the County of Denbighshire, or communities within Denbighshire
Should be about a new topic (i.e. petitions should not be repeated continuously)

What can’t be included in a petition?

We won’t accept the following types of petitions:

Petitions which the Council has no ability to respond to, or for which the Council is not the correct decision-making authority for the subject of the petition.
Petitions which ask the Council to take an action against a specific person.For complaints about Councillors or Council employees we already have a specific complaints procedure to deal with grievance issues, more detail can be found on our website: Complaints, compliments and feedback | Denbighshire County Council
Petitions which, if the decision or reason for the campaign was upheld, would force the Council to break international, UK or Welsh law. This could include petitions which could cause harm, discrimination or harassment to others.
Petitions which are in any other way defamatory, offensive, frivolous or improper
Petitions relating to active Planning Committee decisions. There is already a process in place to search and respond to planning applications. Please visit the Council’s website: Search and comment on Planning applications | Denbighshire County Council
Petitions for which any other Council processes already exist to deal with the matter concerned, for example:
1. You can report missed bin collections to the Council here: Report a Missed Bin | Denbighshire County Council
2. You can report a pothole in the road to the Council here: Report a pothole, damaged road or pavement | Denbighshire County

How do I start a petition?

To start a petition, you will need to do one of the following:

Download a petition cover sheet and signature sheets from our website
You can use a third-party petitions website if you wish, however please make sure that anyone you are asking to sign your petition provides the following details:
1. Name of anyone signing the petition
2. Address of anyone signing the petition. At a minimum, this should be their town/city/village, and their postcode.

Please note: if you are using a third-party website to create and manage your petition, you must close the petition and submit it to the Council before we can acknowledge or respond to it. Open petitions which have not been submitted to the Council cannot be discussed, nor responded to.

What needs to go in my petition?

All petitions, whether you are using the template document provided by Denbighshire County Council or a third party should contain:

The name and contact details of the petition organiser.
A clear and concise statement about the reason for making the petition.
A clear and concise statement explaining the actions that you wish the Council to take, or discuss

Petition Signatories

An appropriate signatory is an individual who lives, works, owns a business or studies in Denbighshire; a landowner / taxpayer or who lives in an area of a nearby county and where it can be reasonably expected for them to be affected by the subject of the petition.
An individual can only sign a petition once. People must not sign the same on-line and paper petition

How do I submit a petition?

When you are happy with your petition, you must close it. This means you must stop accepting new signatures. You must submit a complete and finalised record of everyone who has signed your petition so that the Council can count and verify the data. This is because the number of signatories can affect the response a petition receives.

Once you have closed your petition, you can submit it in one of the following ways:

Online: Petitions can be submitted via email to petitions@denbighshire.gov.uk
By post:Petitions can be posted to Democratic Services, Denbighshire County Council, PO Box 62, LL15 1YN

If you are using a third-party website to start an electronic petition, please make sure it is capable of allowing you to download your final set of responses/signatories to a PDF, CSV or similar file as you will need to send these in to us.

Open links (i.e. petitions which are still capable of collecting additional signatures) will be disregarded.

How will the Council respond to petitions?

The Council will consider every petition with more than 100 signatories that falls within the scope of this Scheme. The Council can use its discretion where fewer than 100 signatories are received in cases where there is clear local support for action (e.g. if the residents of a small community have petitioned for traffic calming measures) or where the subject of the petition affects people with one or more protected characteristics.

All petitions that the Council receives will be acknowledged within 10 working days.

The Council will then aim to respond further to the petition within 21 working days.

How the Council responds will depend on what the petition is about, and who might be affected by it. When we respond we will do one of the following:

If the petition is not a matter the Council is responsible for, we will inform you. Where possible, we will try to signpost you to the responsible authority (e.g. Welsh Government, UK Government, North Wales Police, Natural Resources Wales etc). We will not forward the petition on to another authority, this will be your responsibility as the petition organiser.
If the petition is a matter the Council is responsible for, we will consider what actions we are able to take. If we are able to support the action requested in the petition we will do. If we are unable to support the action requested, or if the petition subject requires further discussion, you will get one of the following responses:
1. An officer responsible for dealing with the subject matter of your petition may respond
2. A Head of Service or a Lead Member (Councillor responsible) responsible for dealing with the subject matter of your petition may respond
3. A relevant Council committee meeting (e.g. Scrutiny) may discuss your petition
4. Cabinet or Full Council may discuss your petition
If you want to submit a petition to a specific meeting of the Council or Cabinet or Cabinet Board or Committee then you need to ensure that we receive a completed petition with details of the petition subject matter, number of signatures and your contact details by no later than 5.00pm, at least 10 working days before that meeting to enable it to be submitted.
The Public Engagement Officer, supported by the Monitoring Officer and the Democratic Services Manager will consider the petitions submitted, decide whether the petition is acceptable based on the following criteria for a valid petition, and will advise on which appropriate body will consider it.

The Council has a duty to maintain a public register of petitions and publish this on the Council’s website.

Confirmation will be needed regarding the validity of the petition before it is registered in the Council’s Petition Scheme Register and published on the Council's website.

Valid petitions will be published on the website within 15 working days of a final decision being made.

To see the register of petitions, please visit: [website URL tbc]

How do I tell people about the outcome of my petition?

The Council will respond to the petitioner (i.e. the person or persons who created the petition) with a decision or an update. Any petitions which are valid will be published on the Council’s public register of petitions, and published on the Council’s website.

Communicating the outcome of a petition to individual signatories will remain the responsibility of the person who created the petition. It is not the Council’s responsibility to update individual signatories on the outcome of a petition.

If you are using 3rd party websites to create your petition online, there is usually an option available to update everyone who has signed it