If a petition contains more than 1,500 signatures (around 1% of the population of Warwick District), it will be debated at a Council meeting.

This means that the issue raised in the petition will be discussed at a meeting which all Councillors can attend. The Council will endeavour to consider the petition at its next scheduled meeting, although on some occasions this may not be possible, and consideration will then take place at the following meeting. The petition organiser will be given five minutes to present the petition at the meeting (but will not be required to respond to any questions or statements made from Councillors in the subsequent debate) and the petition will then be debated by Councillors.

The Council will decide how to respond to the petition at this meeting. They may decide to take the action the petition requests, not to take the action requested for reasons put forward in the debate, or to commission further investigation into the matter, for example by a relevant Committee. Where the issue is one on which the Council’s Cabinet is required to make the final decision, the Council will decide whether to make recommendations to inform that decision. The petition organiser will receive written confirmation of this decision.