Petitions

E-petitions

An e-petition is a petition which is submitted electronically to the council for consideration in relation to a particular issue or concern. It differs from a traditional paper-based petition in that it is accessible to anyone who wishes to sign it through the council’s website. E-petitions must follow the same guidelines as paper petitions and will be dealt with in the same manner.

Submitting an e-petition

As with paper-based petitions, to submit an e-petition to the council, you must live, work or study within North Northamptonshire. Therefore, if you are not a resident of North Northamptonshire, please include a “qualifying address” which will be the address in North Northamptonshire where you work or study.

The council will need full contact details of the person who is leading on the petition. Therefore, you will need to register on the council’s website. It is a straightforward process which requires you to provide the council with a few details for when we need to contact you about the petition.

The council will contact the lead petitioner to advise when you your e-petition will go live on the website and to discuss the appropriate time for when the petition will stop collecting signatures (normally 28 days).

When the “live” period is nearing an end, the council will contact the lead petitioner to check whether an extension is to be requested, such as in circumstances where a petition has not quite reached a relevant threshold. In circumstances where there is a decision-making deadline directly relevant to the petition, the request for an extension may be rejected to enable appropriate timely consideration.

When the “live” period is over, the way in which the council responds, as with paper petitions, will depend on how many signatures are submitted.

Starting an e-petition

North Northamptonshire Council offers its own e-petition web service to residents where you can manage and collect your signatures, and then automatically send it to Democratic Services once the petition has closed.

If you wish to use a website other than North Northamptonshire Council’s, the way in which the website collects petitioners must be compliant with the requirements of our paper based petitions, i.e. names and addresses need to be collected and able to be sent for verification to the monitoring officer either by sending a pdf copy of the petition by emailing [email protected] or posting a printed copy to us at North Northamptonshire Council, Democratic Services, Corby Cube, George Street, Corby, NN17 1QG.

Who can sign an e-petition

If you are signing an e-petition you will be required to provide us with basic personal information (an email address and an address including a postcode). Each signatory must give a separate email address. Your name (but no other details) will be published on the e-petitions section of the website. The council will only use the information you provide to validate your signature and that you live, work or study in North Northamptonshire.

You can only sign an e-petition once. The list of signatories will be checked by officers and any duplicate signatures or vexatious, abusive or otherwise inappropriate content will be removed.

Last updated 02 September 2026