A paper or electronic petition is valid (and will be formally considered by the council) if:
- the person creating or submitting it (the lead petitioner) lives in the borough of Hillingdon
- the petition relates to a single issue within the council's responsibilities, eg a planning application, road traffic calming, change in a policy or a new community facility
- it reaches the required number of signatures (with names and addresses) of Hillingdon residents
- petitions about local issues require 20+ signatures
- petitions about borough-wide issues require 100+ signatures.
If the required number of signatories is not met, a petition will instead be treated as a corporate complaint or service request and sent to the appropriate council service to respond to.
Your local ward councillors will still be notified of these petitions and they may request that the relevant cabinet member treats the petition as valid and the petition will then be processed for formal consideration. In such circumstances, we will write to you to advise what further action can be taken, including securing any additional signatories required.
Please note:
- If your petition relates to a current planning application or licensing matter, you must include details of the application, including the application number (search for planning application numbers).
- Petitions are public documents; however, your personal details as a signatory to a petition will not be published by us or made available to third parties.
- If we have already received a petition on exactly the same council service matter, we won't accept another on the same issue for 6 months.
Invalid/rejected petitions
Petitions may be rejected if they are inappropriate, not feasible and do not relate to matters that are the direct responsibility of the council.
A petition will not be valid/accepted if it falls into one of the obvious categories set out in our
Petition Scheme 2024 (PDF, 128 KB). For example, a matter not within the council's remit or on matter where a recent decision has just been made following due public consultation.
Petitions can also not be accepted on High Speed 2 Schedule 17 applications, as these are not planning applications and the law will always override any petitions received.