In addition, the petition has formed an alliance with the Newark and Sherwood volunteer centre, which has a similar petition on the same website with 1,294 signatures.
Harriett Baldwin, Conservative Parliamentary candidate for West Worcestershire, who set up the e-petition at the request of Community Action, Malvern and District, said, "I have contacted Judy Byrom, the initiator of the other petition, and she would be happy to team up with us. I have also been in touch with the website designers, to see if a merger is possible. This would take the total signatures to over 2,000, even allowing for some possible duplication. 2,500 signatures gets you onto the front page of the Number 10 website, so surely Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown must sit up and take notice. I am still waiting for a reply to my letter to Alistair Darling."
Currently, HMRC allows charities to reimburse volunteer drivers for their fuel at a maximum rate of 40p per mile. With petrol and diesel prices so high, this rate no longer is adequate to cover the volunteers' fuel costs. Charities cannot reimburse volunteers in any other way without creating taxable income. Therefore the threshold should rise to 50p per mile.