Amalgamation of petitions
8.—(1) Where more than one petition relating to the same area and proposing the same constitutional change has been prepared, those petitions may, at any time before their presentation to the authority, be amalgamated; and those petitions shall then be treated for all other purposes of this Part as a single petition.
(2) Subject to paragraph (3), where an authority receive more than one petition relating to the same area, the proper officer shall, if satisfied as to their validity in every respect other than that mentioned in regulation 9(1)(a), amalgamate those petitions in accordance with paragraph (4); and those petitions shall then be treated for all other purposes of this Part as a single petition.
(3) The proper officer shall not amalgamate petitions—
(a)if he or she is satisfied that the first petition received by the authority (including constituent petitions amalgamated in accordance with paragraph (1)) contains a number of signatures of local government electors for the authority’s area that equals or exceeds the verification number and is, in other respects, a valid petition;
(b)if he or she is satisfied that the first and other constituent petitions amalgamated in accordance with paragraph (2) contain numbers of signatures of local government electors for the authority’s area that in aggregate equal or exceed the verification number and are, in other respects, valid petitions; or
(c)that do not propose the same constitutional change.
(4) Petitions shall be amalgamated in the order in which they are received except that, where more than one petition is received on the same day—
(a)the petition that contains the greatest number of signatures shall be treated as the first to be received;
(b)any other petitions shall be treated in the following order—
(i)the petition that contains the greatest number of signatures;
(ii)the petition that contains the next greatest number of signatures; and so on.