Petitions to Surrey County Council

8.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Sat 29th May 2010

The Liberal Democrats at County Hall have requested this many times.

Surrey County Council's Conservative administration has recently decided to allow members of the public to submit petitions at meetings of the whole Council, not just at committee meetings. This is something that the Liberal Democrat Group at County Hall have requested many times in order to open up the Council, but which until now has always been refused by the Conservative administration, even as recently as March this year.

A scheme is being drawn up to set out the rules for allowing petitions to be presented. County Councillor Colin Taylor says that the Liberal Democrat Group will be seeking to ensure that the rules are not overly restrictive, so that Surrey residents can have an influence on County Council decisions that affect them.

How much longer will the ruling RA group at Epsom & Ewell deny this right to local people?