Urgent News re the E Petition

Because of the rules of these things, we will have to close the petition by or on 3rd March. A petition cannot, apparently, be discussed until it is closed. We have also been told that it will only ever be treated as a “local issue” and thus, no matter how many signatures it gets, will never qualify to go on the agenda at Swale. The best way to move this forward, we are told, is to have it raised at the next Local Engagement Forum on 15th March at the Alexander Centre. However, if we don’t close it, although this is an open, public meeting, it could be excluded as a topic for discussion. Clearly, someone would have to stand up and actually say it couldn’t be discussed, but I am not sure if that would be a Councillor, or if a poor old Council employee would have the task dumped on them… But I don’t think we can take that risk.

This is all new stuff, the epetition is the first one Swale have run. For all I know it may be the first Government e petition in the country. The rules are not clear.

But what I do know is, the more names we have, the more notice our elected representatives have to take, no matter what. So, if you know of anyone who hasn’t yet signed, but would like to, please ask them to hurry and sign before Thursday this week.

Thank you for all your tremendous support.