I noticed a problem with a set of traffic lights in Kingston at the weekend, and being a civic minded kind of chap, headed over to the Kingston Council website to report it. Whilst there, I noticed they had an “ePetitions” section where residents could sign up to make their voice heard in support of particular issues.
I did a bit of Googling, and it seems that there’s quite a few councils around the country that do this now, and I think it’s a smart idea. Probably the most well known use of ePetitions is on the 10 Downing Street, which has given people the chance to promote all manner of causes to the government, with the most recent high profile one calling for Gordon Brown to resign.
Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, Greenwich Council doesn’t offer an ePetitions system which is perhaps not surprising as I don’t think digital engagement is really their speciality. That’s a bit of a shame, as there’s no shortage of contentious issues where a petition might be quite useful. So in the absence of anything official, I thought we might try and set up some petitioning functionality on Greenwich.co.uk.
I’m evaluating the technical options for doing this at the moment, but if you have an idea for a petition to pilot the system and help get us going, send an email to rob@greenwich.co.uk
Or do you think ePetitions are a waste of time? Any comments on this are welcome.
Very good idea. I think that the council should take an active interest in what residents are saying and get some grassroots feedback on their policies and initiatives. I think the problem is that Greenwich Council is too centralised. It is easy to feedback to them or view planning proposals – if you live in Woolwich. Greenwich town seems a bit out on a limb in some way. Unfortunately I can’t help but think that the council views Greenwich as its cash cow and its residents as troublesome opposition to their plans
A good example of how the e-petition could work would be with the current Greenwich Market planning proposals. As we have just seen after 19 people voiced their opposition to the plans a technical glitch led to the online feedback form going off-line 5 days ago and it seems that the council have been unable to make the page live again. So a petition would be a great way of demonstrating people’s true feelings and giving the residents a bit more of a voice
Thanks for the feedback, Paul. Also received some encouraging emails so have just setup the new Petitions section of the site, with a first petition gone live.
http://www.greenwich.co.uk/petitions/