View or support a current petition
You can view current petitions or support an existing petition about issues we are responsible for by using our simple online service. 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 - a valid postcode must be given.
Create a petition
Petitions can be paper based or electronic, or a combination of the two if the wording is identical.
To start a petition, you must include a short statement on what it's about, which must relate to a council duty or power. It should also say what actions you want the council to take.
The Head of Corporate Governance will look at your petition and 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. You'll need to register as a new user the first time you use it.
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
You may want to run a paper petition instead of, or as well as, an e-petition. 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 follow these guidelines may be rejected. If that happens the petition organiser will be informed of the reasons.
Submitting a petition to a council meeting
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.
If you want it to be heard at a particular meeting you should contact democratic services to confirm the deadline to submit your petition.
If you want to present a petition that doesn't need debate to a Full Council meeting, you need to submit 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.