A group of residents has started a petition calling for an Island to split from the rest of a borough and have an independent district council.

Members of a social media community on Sheppey say change is needed as people are not being listened to on key issues, such as housing, policing, infrastructure and transport.

Minster mum-of-two Niquie Trower believes the structural shift would hold a new authority to higher accountability and ensure tailored decision-making.

She said: “We’ve opted for this purely because no one would take responsibility to fix or replace any of the issues that we've highlighted. Everything gets knocked back.

“It's either that there’s no funding or they pass the buck to another authority. It's just a vicious circle.”

The 48-year-old runs Sheppey Action Group on Facebook with six others who act as admin.

It was launched in March, at first to organise protests over the prospect of Ocean Heights care home in Minster being used to house asylum-seeking children, despite the closure of the Island’s only Kent County Council-funded care home, Blackburn Lodge.

After celebrating success in that campaign, with the building’s owners Liz and Ernie Batten pulling out of the deal due to the scale of the opposition, the group looked at where else it could effect positive change.

It says it aims to unite residents and “amplify their voices”. Nearly 6,000 people have joined the group.

Wayne Sullivan, 63, from Minster, has lived on the Island for around 40 years.

He was part of the charity Sheppey Matters when it was first created in 1994 and is now an admin for the new Facebook community.

“It's a work in progress, but it's so popular,” he said.

“People are applying to join daily by the dozen and I can see by Christmas we're going to be up to 7,000 members.

“We're all on the same level – we live in the same place and empathise with each other. It's empowering and very positive.”

Following recent discussions and an online poll, the majority of members wanted the Island to have its own independent council, instead of being joined with Swale.

To do this, they have started a Community Governance Review to explore the feasibility of the idea.

The group is also putting together a comprehensive plan, which will go alongside a petition and include a financial assessment.

Swale council was created on April 1, 1974 – a merger of four smaller councils which covered the Island, Sittingbourne and Faversham.

Before then Sheppey’s administrative heart was Queenborough-in-Sheppey Municipal Borough, which covered the whole Island.

Before that, local matters were divided between the Municipal Borough of Queenborough, Sheerness Urban District and Sheppey Rural District.

The Swale district covers 144 square miles, which includes Sittingbourne and Faversham, as well as Sheerness and Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey.

A district council, also known as a borough or city council, is an authority smaller than a county council.

It provides local services, including rubbish collection, recycling, tax collections, housing, planning applications, environmental health and leisure facilities.

Swale council has some exclusive responsibilities but shares others with Kent County Council (KCC).

One of the potential disadvantages with the idea is that council tax would have to rise.

The Island would be reliant on its residents, who would have to contribute more to pay for local services, rather than collecting additional tax from people living on the mainland.

Despite this, Niquie emphasises that all of the money being paid in would go towards Sheppey, instead of being split with Sittingbourne and Faversham.

“If I knew that I was going to be paying into a system that was going to benefit my children, then I'd pay extra,” she added.

“I would find that money because I know that it’s going to make this place better for my kids and future generations.”

For the past four weeks, Sheppey Action Group has been attending fairs and events, as well as setting up a stall in the High Street to collect signatures.

So far they have visited Sheerness and Barton’s Point, with plans to travel to other wards in the coming weeks.

At the time of writing they have 2,111 signatures, with a goal of 3,221 – approximately 10% of residents on the electoral register.

Niquie says they have six months to gather more names and aims to get everything ready by December.

Click here if you would like to sign the online petition – you must be a resident on the Island to do this.

Niquie added: “We know it's a big risk, we understand that. For it to happen, we need to prove that we can make it work.

“Once we have the full package together, it will then go to the government and they will decide if it's a viable option.”

She added: “I think it would be so easy to turn around and say we know exactly what we're doing, but we don’t.

“We're just residents who care about what happens to where they live.”

Sittingbourne and Sheppey MP Kevin McKenna says he doesn’t think this is the best solution, but believes people are on the “right track”.

He explained: “If a district council is too small, they become really ineffective and the economics don't work very well.

“There would be fewer people who would be paying council tax and a lot of the higher rate taxpayers are actually on the mainland. So the finances available to it would be smaller.

“On Sheppey, we have people living in caravan parks and that's a lot of the population which isn’t properly accounted for.

“The Island would suddenly have a lot less money per head and at the same time have to run all of the administration.

“I think what Sheppey suffers from is it's very distant from the centres of power in KCC. It's hard to influence such a big organisation that's based a long way away.”

The MP aims to speak with the petition organisers about the solution of a “neighbourhood plan”.

It would involve a focus on the future of the Island and is set to address problems that have been raised by residents.

A Swale Council spokesman said: “It’s encouraging to see local people wanting to engage with local democracy, but any decision on changing the structure of local government is up to the government.

“Nationally, recent changes to council structures have tended to focus on large, county-sized devolution deals, which bring together shared resources to provide services over a larger area, so it is questionable if there would be any appetite for smaller scale reorganisations such as these proposals.

“We understand people want better public services – but that isn’t just the case on Sheppey, or indeed the rest of the borough.

“Like most borough councils, we are facing a challenging financial situation. Funding from central government has almost disappeared compared to what we used to receive, whilst costs have spiralled.

“The borough also has a relatively low council tax base, with more than 62% of properties being in bands A, B or C, and most people don’t realise that despite our name being on the council tax bill, we only get to keep a small proportion of what they pay.

“We know the funding situation has an impact on the services we want to deliver, which is why decisions made about them are agreed by elected councillors from across the borough.”

“Most of the money we pay in our council tax goes to KCC (73%), with the remainder being split between the Kent Police and Crime Commissioner (12%), us (9%), Kent Fire and Rescue (4%), and town and parish councils (2%).

“We know the funding situation has an impact on the services we want to deliver, which is why decisions made about them are agreed by elected councillors from across the borough.

“We also have service committees made up of elected councillors who represent their areas and Sheppey has one of our four area committees which gives local people a voice and the chance to help shape our work.

“We do appreciate people wanting to see us delivering better services – so do we – but we have to be realistic about what is possible with the resources available.

“That’s why it’s great to see people engaging on this issue, as it’s a chance for people to find out more about how we work to provide a wide range of services whilst costing more than four out of five households £3.86 a week or less.”