Petitions

A petition is a formally written request, signed by at least 50 local people, sent to us requesting action to be taken about a local government issue.

The petitions scheme document tells you what you need to include, the qualifying criteria and circumstances of exclusion.

To be eligible to submit a petition you need to live, work or study within the Hull city boundary.

We do not accept petitions -  

  • for planning
  • about licensing
  • where an individual or organisation has an established recourse to a review or appeal
  • when there is a more suitable process for deciding the issue
  • for identifiable individual’s or groups’ personal, contractual or commercial interests

Petition documents, and guidance are available to be downloaded.

How to submit a petition

You can submit a petition in a number of ways -

  • Post
    Freepost RSJC-KKBE-ABXZ
    Customer Feedback Team
    Hull City Council
    PO Box 15
    Hull
    HU1 2AB

When you submit your petition you must fill in a petitions background information form. We have also created a pro forma petition document to help make sure you include all the relevant information. These can be found in the files section to the left.

When we receive your paper petition you are sent an acknowledgment within 10 working days. This tells you what we plan to do with the petition and when you can expect to hear from us again.

Valid signatures

For your petition signatures to be valid, you must make sure the person who has signed your petition has provided an address within the Hull City boundary where they live, work or study.

You need a minimum of 50 valid signatures for a petition to be accepted into our scheme for consideration at a relevant meeting. If there are over 1500 valid signatures, the petition is debated at a council meeting. 

Alternatives to the petitions scheme

If you collect less than 50 valid signatures we can help you to consider an alternative -

Starting an online petition

  • create your own online petition 
  • if this is your first time using the site, you need to register by selecting the register button and completing a few details about yourself to create a user account
  • follow the instructions on the site to set up and submit your petition.
  • if you have not yet completed a petition background information form we ask you to do so and submit it to us

Signing an open petition

If this is your first time using the site, you need to register by selecting the ‘register’ button and completing a few details about yourself to create a user account. Please make sure that the house number or name, street, town and postcode details you register relate to the address where you live, work or study within the Hull City Council boundary -

  • sign an open online petition
  • a list of petitions are displayed along with their current status indicating if they are open and accepting signatures
  • select view beside the name of the petition you want to sign
  • then select sign petition

What happens next

When you have completed your online petition we are notified.  We then assess the subject of the petition and petition background information to make sure it can be accepted into our petition scheme.

If we decide that your petition can be accepted into the scheme, we inform you that your petition is open for signatures. Should we decided that your petition can’t be accepted, we contact you and explain why. Some petitions may be able to be re-submitted with changes.

Additional paper signatures can be sent to us using the Freepost address above or scan and email them to the contact email address as mentioned in your acknowledgment letter. We add them to the petition once we have counted the number of valid signatures

When your online petition reaches its closing date we tell you and let you know what steps we take in response. Our response depends on what your petition asks for and how many valid signatures have been collected

Please be aware that by using the online petitions facility, our response is posted on the petitions website.