The campaign for a new Windsor Town Council has attracted enough signatures to bring it a step closer to success.

The petition needed 1,661 names before a sufficiently large percentage of central Windsor residents had been obtained to make the setting up of a new 'local authority' legally possible.

Richard Endacott, who is chairman of West Windsor Residents Association and chief executive of the committee behind the Town Council campaign, thanked supporters who had collected the signatures, saying: "There is clearly a huge appetite from residents for a brighter more localised future. I know some of you are still collecting signatures. Please continue to do so, to strengthen the mandate further."

Volunteers will be celebrating tonight (Friday) in the Queen Charlotte pub. The online part of the petition will close on December 27 and the submission of the paper copies of the petition will be submitted to the Royal Borough on January 13, in the hope that the authority will agree there is sufficient support to start a review.

This could take up to a year and would involve a full public meeting to involve the public in the process.

The proposed new Windsor Town Council would have the same powers as the parish councils in the nearby villages of Wraysbury and Datchet and the Town Councils in Eton and Marlow. It would be able to focus on the sort of local issues that can slip through the Royal Borough's net, although the Royal Borough would remain the overall ruling authority.

It would spread beyond the current town centre to include the areas Clewer and Dedworth to the west of the town that do not have parish councils to represent them.