You can submit or support petitions about issues the Council is responsible for. Petitions can be electronic, paper-based, or both (if the wording is identical).
View or support a current petition
You can use our simple online service to view or support current petitions. You'll need to register as a new user the first time you use it.
We can only accept signatures from people who live, work or study in the Canterbury district - You must give a valid postcode.
Start a petition
To start a petition, you must include:
- a short statement on what it's about, which must relate to a council duty or power, and
- what actions you want us to take.
The Head of Corporate Governance will look at your petition. If it is accepted, it will be added to our online e-petitions page.
We only accept those submitted on our own e-petitions site.
Third-party petitions will normally be accepted if they include all required information and an action that we can take. If not, they’ll be treated as normal requests and given to the appropriate department to look at.
You can log in to your account to create an online petition.
Paper petitions
Each page of the petition must include the petition wording. All signatories must include their name, address and postcode.
Petitions will either be referred to a meeting of council or to an officer who will respond.
Petitions that do not meet these guidelines may be rejected. You will be informed of the reasons why.
Submit a petition to Full Council
To submit a petition for debate at Full Council, it must have at least 1,000 valid signatures. It will then be scheduled for the next available meeting. You can contact democratic services to confirm the deadline to submit your petition.
You can also present a petition that doesn't need debate to a Full Council meeting, by letting us know and submitting it by 12.30pm the day before the meeting.
If the petition relates to an item already on the agenda, it will be discussed as part of that item. All other petitions will be referred to a committee or an officer to look at.
You can find more information and guidance on submitting a petition in our Constitution.