CAMPAIGNERS will have to collect almost 16,000 names on a petition before county councillors will debate their demands.

Councils across the country are deciding on the number of signatures needed to trigger a council debate or a senior officer being called to account over an issue.

The Conservative administration at County Hall agreed the thresholds should be set at approximately 16,000 and 4,000 signatures respectively.

Liberal Democrat councillors called for the thresholds to be lower, at 500 each, to provide a better opportunity for residents to get their concerns discussed.

Liberal Democrat county councillor Jean Fooks said: “Requiring 15,995 signatures to call a council debate is ridiculous — how many petitions will get that? It’s 2.5 per cent of Oxfordshire’s population. The Government said the number of signatures should be set at a level to encourage rather than discourage petitions. This is undemocratic.”

Callum McKenzie, a spokesman for Sutton Courtenay Against the Incinerator, said: “I think our campaign exceeded 16,000 names, but there will be lots of other campaigns that don’t get that many signatures.”

Council leader Keith Mitchell said: “The threshold needs to be set high enough to prevent frivolous or vexatious issues being debated but low enough to be feasible where there is a matter of importance. We’ve set thresholds broadly similar to our neighbours.”

County Hall spokesman Paul Smith stressed any councillor could put forward a motion to full council if he or she thought a major issue warranted debate.

He also said if the petition applied to only one or two county council divisions, the 15,995 figure would be halved.