Government Website e-petition

GOVERNMENT WEBSITE E-PETITION.

The e-petition posted on the Government Website closed today, 2^nd February 2014 @ 09:51am.

We would like to thank those who took the time, interest and effort to sign the petition, thank you.

During the course of the 6 months it has been available it attracted 15 signatures of support. Neither we nor Kenneth Lyons who created the petition are disappointed with that result, we accept it would have been nice to have a few more, but that doesn’t distract from the 15 people who took the time and effort to sign the petition and show some interest in our local Parish Council.

So what does it tell us? The petition was mentioned on Facebook, this blog and HU12 Online, this is by no means an extensive promotional campaign but it did get an airing. The petition could have been posted for 12 months instead of 6, but it was felt that after 6 months the main interest and activity would be rapidly diminishing in any case, so the second 6 months would have had limited value, that view we believe is still valid.

Some might say, only fifteen people signed it so what was the point? The point was to give Preston residents the opportunity to sign if they so wished, they have now had that opportunity, clearly not many people chose to take advantage of that, but that remains a reflection on residents and on the level of interest in local government and our Parish Council, and how relevant it is to their lives.

Many local Councils, particularly Preston have been detached from its residents for many years and have not been seen to be working in the best interests of its residents. Many people would understandably think, “What’s the point, why waste our time?”.

Had we wished to, we could have had many more signatures by asking family and friends to support us and sign the petition. However this we feel would have been dishonest and unrepresentative of Preston residents.

It only remains for us to add that unless we show interest in what our local representatives are doing on our behalf, we will never get the representation we as residents deserve, and therefore we deserve what we get.

Thank you to Kenneth Lyons who had the courage to create the petition and stand by it’s result.