COUNCILLORS will have another chance to scrap the much criticised green spaces sell-off plan – thanks to a petition of more than 6,900 signatures.

New rules on petitions mean that if more than 3,500 signatures are collected Bristol City Council has to debate the issue at a full council meeting.

The "Big Save Our Parks Petition" has nearly double that at 6,984. Although it pales in comparison with the pro-Bristol City Football Club Stadium petition of 30,000, it is still one of the largest petitions in the history of the authority.

That is despite claims from leading Liberal Democrats when the petition was launched earlier this year that residents were losing interest in fighting the sell-off plan due to a low turn out at the cabinet meeting that agreed it in December.

The council says it needs to sell more than 40 parks and green spaces to raise money for improvements for nearly 200 more across the city.

But only 70 per cent of the money raised from sales would be reinvested in parks. At earlier stages in the plan under the previous Labour administration 50 per cent and 80 per cent were considered but no explanation has been provided as to why it is not 100 per cent.

The financing of the plan took a huge dent when the council revised the amount of money it would raise from the sales from £41 million to £11 million due to the ongoing financial crisis. Three months later the council has yet to fully explain how it will plug the £30 million gap in the original £87 million plan.

A record public consultation last summer saw more than 16,000 people sign petitions opposing either individual park sales or the plan in general – and not one person signed a petition in support.

The council cabinet did save nine sites in response to the public consultation, but some of those that saw objections were still agreed for eventual sale.

Representatives of the three opposition parties presented a 6,984 name petition to officers calling for an urgent council debate on the issue on Monday.

Working together, the Conservative, Labour and Green parties agreed to mount a joint campaign to force a debate after the Lib Dem cabinet refused to accept a cross-party recommendation to halt or even delay the plans late last year. Many residents were angry that their letters, emails and petitions submitted to council were not being taken into account in the final officer's report on the plan.

There were also claims that when considering which sites to sell off, the council appeared to give evidence from the Avon Wildlife Trust less weight if it opposed disposal, in favour of council officers who did not object.

Councillor Mark Weston was the Conservative chair of the quality of life scrutiny commission that recommended deferral.

He said: "Many of the parks now earmarked for sale are highly valued by the local residents, they are not the 'low-value' sites that we were promised. If we allow the council to push ahead with this flawed plan then it will damage communities across the city."

Leader of the Labour group Helen Holland said: "This petition again demonstrates the level of public concern at the Lib Dem plans.

"A debate at full council will now force into the open the level of misinformation and secretive decision-making which has taken place. People have made their feelings clear. It's time for the councillors in control to listen."

The Green Party's Councillor Tess Green said: "Communities have come together to protest. It is important their voices are heard".

Bristol City Council leader Barbara Janke said: "It comes as no surprise that this is genuinely a matter of concern for some residents, as the petition demonstrates.

"Many of our parks are badly in need of investment. Funding will come from a variety of sources. As far as land sales go, they will take place over a long period of time – the next 20 years – and an unprecedented period of consultation was held to ensure all voices were heard.

"The result was that we did make changes from officers' original recommendation. It is not correct to say that they moved away from the original stipulation to put only land of low amenity value up for sale.

"We can expect that opposition parties will seek to make political capital out of these concerns in the run-up to the elections.

"However, the last Labour administration was planning to sell off more space than we are doing – and to reinvest less of it in Bristol's parks."

The parks sale was debated at full council last November but attempts to abandon or reconsider it were crushed by the unanimous Lib Dem majority.