Harlow Council has agreed proposals to improve the way in which it acts on petitions received from the public. Instead of petitions being presented to the Full Council meeting and then referred to committees, petitions will in future be presented straight to the relevant committee, unless they are about something which only the Full Council is responsible for. Liberal Democrat councillor Chris Millington explains:

"Until now, members of the public presenting petitions to Full Council have had to wait until the next meeting of the relevant committee for their concerns to be addressed. This new system means petitions will be considered by the committee responsible for acting on the contents."

Meanwhile, proposed changes to the procedure for planning applications, which would have given individual councillors the right to refer applications to the Planning Committee for consideration, have been deferred to a later meeting of the Full Council.