Make Your Voice Heard

Press Release  (15 October 09)

Petition your council – online!

It’s soon going to become quicker and easier to petition Brighton & Hove City Council on issues you feel strongly about.

The council is launching electronic ‘e-petitions’ at its Get Involved day on Saturday 21 November at Hove Town Hall. The day aims to get more people involved in local decision making and helping them understand how local democracy works.

‘E-petitions’ will work in the same way as traditional paper ones, but will be done electronically via email and the council’s website. People who live, work or study in Brighton & Hove will be able to post petitions on the website once they have filled in a simple online registration form.

Other people can then log on and ‘sign’ them up until a specified closing date. While the council will host petitions, it will be up to the promoters of individual petitions to publicise them. As with traditional paper petitions, the council will be obliged to respond to them either in writing or by inviting the petitioner to speak at a council meeting.

The scheme is being tested for a few months in the first instance, and will be reviewed in the spring to make sure it is working properly.

The chairman of the council’s governance committee, Councillor Brian Oxley, said: “We’re taking local democracy further into the digital age because we want to make it easier for people to get involved in local issues that affect them.

“People can still do paper petitions if they wish to. But I’m convinced that many local people will want to take advantage of our new electronic petitioning system once it’s up and running on 21 November.”