Petitions on the PMs website will result in the government just clarifying their current policy and nothing else.
I'm going to agree ... and disagree ... with that. Yes, experience shows that a petition does result in the government clarifying their current position in the majority of cases. And that's likely to be all that the signatories see in their response. However, it can also help to move the specific case up the agenda and in association with a whole load of other inputs, including well argued longer cases, local press, political pressure, etc can result in some movement. And it can also help open some doors for the people behind the petition, getting them a seat at a table here and there and helping to make their voice heard that little bit more.
I ran a petition that ended over a year ago now - ran for just three weeks (that's the minimum period - I think the Cotswold one has gone to the opposite end of the spectum and runs for a year) and got over 1700 signatures to:
""We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to provide a reliable train service with adequate capacity at times that travellers wish to make journeys from Swindon to Westbury, Bristol to Severn Beach, Portsmouth and Weymouth to Cardiff, Taunton to Cheltenham, Swindon to Cheltenham. This includes all intermediate stations and journeys in both directions.""
The response was, indeed, a restatement of government policy that gave very little and was econimic with the truth - presenting statistics that when taken alone and assumed to be the total case would seriously mislead. But - take a look at what the Prime Minister was asked and you'll find that certain things have been acted upon. There's more capacity, more trains to Severn Beach, more reliability now. Of course the petition wasn't the key, but perhaps it did make the government sit up and take a little - just a little more note. It all adds weight to the campaigns alongside others too numerous to mention.
Swindon to Westbury has not yet been solved; trains at 06:15 and 18:45 (only) remain timed to suit the convenience of the operator and not the people of North, West and South Wiltshire and Swindon who wish to travel on this corridor. But we are still talking, and indeed various draft timetables and proposals are floating around for next December. On a somewhat different tacki to a p.m.'s petition, we've also been looking for support via,
http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/pledge.html where individual user can sign up in a more targetted manner - we're looking to sign up people who actually know a little about the area, live and / or travel in Wiltshire for the most part and / or are rail experts or represent people who do travel. The text reads:
"""I support the return of a more appropriate train service linking the five largest population centres in Wiltshire, as shown in (or similar to) draft timetables from December 2008"""
On that different basis, we have over 440 names (or over 500 if you look at the names of people who have signed up but are yet to confirm / haven't clicked ontheir final email link. 80% live in Wiltshire, over 80% travel regularly in the county ... and we have seen already that all three of the major players -
DfT» ,
WCC▸ and
FGW▸ - are aware and have produced interim responses.
The Cotswold petition reads
""We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to reinstate double track on the Cotswold Railway Line (Oxford to Worcester)."" and currently has 350 signatures. It's not my area / expertise so I'm in no position to comment on the weight it will / has added or its timing, but I am not as negative as swlines in adding the word "just" into my post.
The question has been asked "should this have been posted again?". As administrator, I have no problem with a subject being repeated from time to time for newcomers, and new discussions - such as on the effect of petitions; I hope some of what I have written is new and useful - to be added. However, I will point out that there's a limit to how often it should be done before it starts to have a negative effect, and also that there are route specific boards which are designed for matters which are route specific. Please use those boards for future threads - they'll help keep the case as a bigger fish in a smaller pond, which will be of benefit to Cotswold travellers, and they'll also help keep "across the west" a little clearer for general posts across the wider area.
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