Alex,
We usually receive petitions during consultations. Usually they are reported in a report of public consultation as being received, briefly explaining what they say and how many people have signed it.
For the recent consultation we will be additing the details of petition to our consultation database (redacting personal details) and specify how many people signed it in the database.
You could contact the lead petitioner but I don't think contacting all those that signed is necessary.
I don't think there are any regulations in relation to Local Plan petitions, however your authority may have particular rules about the number of signatories triggering a debate at Council. I think Local Plan petitions are excluded from this rule at our authority because they relate to ongoing consultations.
What we also get alot of is what we call 'standard responses' where we receive duplicate reps from different respondents. These are dealt with as individual reps.
