A MEMBER of the Harlow Green Party has questioned the council over e-petitions.

Howard Beaumont asked councillor Dan Swords:

“The e-petition system could be politically abused quite easily by bad actors, preventing genuine public E-petitions from being submitted because of the 6 month exclusion rule.

“To prevent this, would the council consider implementing an appeals procedure where the 6 month ban on similar petitions could be overturned with regard to very low response petitions”.

Reply from Councillor Dan Swords (Leader of the Council):

The six-month time limit for submitting petitions on the same topic is in place to prevent abuse of the petitions process through the continual submission of the same/very similar petitions in a short space of time. The council has the same rule in place for submitting questions to its meetings.

The council does not feel that an appeals process is necessary, but does have discretion to allow petitions that would breach the six-month rule. It would only exercise this discretion in exceptional circumstances.

Film of questions is below.