Petitions

Who can petition the council?

Anyone who lives, works or studies in County Durham can raise or sign a petition.

What's the process for submitting a petition?

1. Create a petition form with space for names, signatures and addresses of people signing. A clear statement on what action you want the council to take must appear on every page.
2. When you have all your signatures, you should hand it to a county councillor or county council officer.
3. We'll acknowledge your petition within 10 working days, and we'll tell you how we'll deal with it.
4. We will speak to the relevant people within the council and ask for their response to your petition.
5. We will send the response back to you.
6. At the end of the process, we will publish details of the petition and its outcomes on our website.

See the full details in our Petition scheme (PDF) [359KB] .

What should my petition contain?

Your petition must include:

• a clear and concise statement covering the subject of the petition
• a statement on what action the petitioners want the council to take (this should be on each page of the petition)
• the name and address of the person organising the petition (this is the person we will contact to explain how we are dealing with the petition)
• a minimum of ten petitioners' signatures along with their names and addresses

Epetitions

See our ePetitions page to create or sign an epetition.

An epetition collects signatures online. This makes petitions and supporting information available to a much wider audience than a traditional paper-based petition. You can suggest an epetition to go onto our site which people can then sign up to. You can also sign an epetition that is already on our site.

To submit or sign an epetition, you need to register your personal details. Note that this is not your DoItOnline account - you will need to register a new account for epetitions if you have not already done so. If you sign an epetition on this website you will be required to provide basic personal information to enable verification that the signatures are genuine. In some circumstances your name (but no other details) may be published on the website.

If you suggest an epetition to go onto the site, we will respond to you within 10 working days. 

Previous petitions

Download Previous Petitions (PDF) [259KB]  to see petitions previously received by the council.

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

If you feel we have not dealt with your petition properly, the petition organiser has the right to request an appeal to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee who will review the response to your petition. Information on appeals can be found in our constitution.

More information

• Durham County Council accepts no liability for the petitions on these web pages. The views expressed in the petitions do not necessarily reflect those of Durham County Council.
• Each petition must have at least 10 signatures for it to be considered by the council.
• Depending on how complex the issue is, the time it takes for a petition to be fully considered varies widely.
• We will not take action on any petition which we consider to be vexatious, abusive or otherwise inappropriate. We will explain the reasons for this in our acknowledgement of the petition.
• If the petition applies to a planning or licensing application, is a statutory petition (for example requesting a referendum or an elected mayor), or is on a matter where there is already an existing right of appeal, other procedures apply as detailed in the Constitution of the Council.
• A petition may contain personal information about those supporting it. Personal information processed by the Council will be handled in accordance with the Council's privacy statement. The Committee Services privacy notice provides more specific information on the data collected and how it is handled: Privacy notice - committee services (PDF) [105KB] .