Moves to give people more power to hold the county council to account through online petitions have come under fire after it emerged 12,000 signatures would be needed to trigger special meetings.

Under new laws, every council is being required to set up arrangements that will permit residents to submit e-petitions on any issue.

The subject could be council services or on any subject affecting the county area.

Where enough people sign, the council will be forced to either discuss the issue at a council or other public meeting.

It may also hold an inquiry or commission its own research into the issue or give the petition organisers and allow petitioners to quiz council officials.

The proposals are being seen as an important extension of moves to give more power to local people and follow the success of the Downing Street online petition scheme. It has received more than 30,000 petitions up to April this year.

Opposition Liberal Democrats criticised the thresholds in County Hall's scheme, which will start in September.

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For any petition on a county-wide issue, at least 12,000 signatures will be needed to prompt the council to respond, roughly one per cent of the population.

Petitions on issues affecting smaller areas in towns or districts will need 1,000 signatures and for issues that might cover more than one district, the figure will be multiplied accordingly.

Liberal Democrat spokesman Cllr Martin Vye said an average petition on a county-wide matter would probably run into 400 pages.

"Anyone receiving the petition would be at risk of repetitive strain injury.

"This is not exactly giving power to the people. These proposals are [intended] to be a modest extension democracy and it should be part of a range of ways of engaging the public in discussions about services," he said.

The party unsuccessfully urged the council to halve the thresholds.

His colleague, Cllr Tim Prater said the council's pledge to review the thresholds after three months was flawed.

"There is little use of a review if nobody has tested the system and we have not received a petition which has reached the threshold. If we don't see any petitions, the review will be a farce."

But KCC Conservative deputy leader Cllr Alex King said there would be a review after three months and said the council had to avoid setting a threshold that was too low.

"In many ways, this is a step in the dark. In the world of the 'Big Society' it is going to be very important that Kent residents have an effective way of putting their views to members.

"We do not know how it is going to develop and we will review it in the light of experience."

What petition would you put in? What would you change at County Hall? Join in the debate below.

Under the Downing Street e-petition scheme, all petitions that attract more than 500 signatures are formally responded to.

A petition urging the government to scrap plans for road tolls attracted nearly 1.8million signatures - the highest ever recorded for the scheme.

A petition urging Gordon Brown to resign attracted 30,000 signatures in April.

A petition urging the government to let Jeremy Clarkson run the country attracted 55,000 signatories.