The Greens have selected former councillor Ollie Sykes to stand in the Brunswick and Adelaide by-election on Thursday 4 July – the same day as the general election.
Mr Sykes represented the ward for eight years from 2011 to 2019 and was the Green group’s lead for finance on Brighton and Hove City Council.
The party said that he was the right candidate to “hold Labour to account” in a part of the city that has a strong reputation for voting Green.
As a councillor, he campaigned successfully to stop the Labour-led council from selling Hove Library and the council’s valuable downland estate and found ways to invest millions of pounds in climate action.
Brunswick and Adelaide was represented by Green councillors for 12 years until last year when Labour won the second of the ward’s two seats by just six votes.
The by-election is being held after Labour councillor Jilly Stevens, who topped the poll, resigned for health reasons.
Mr Sykes said: “As a councillor who has represented this area, I will be ready to serve the residents of Brunswick and Adelaide from day one.
“There is now already one Labour councillor here as well as a Labour-run council, a Labour MP and soon a Labour government.
“The by-election on Thursday 4 July is your opportunity to push those Labour politicians towards a more progressive and Green agenda.
“The Labour-run council has already broken election promises when it comes to school closures, climate change, toxic weedkiller and wider council service provision.
“Only by electing a Green can you ensure that you can hold Labour to account and your voice is heard on all the key issues.”
Councillor Steve Davis, the leader of the opposition, said: “Ollie has a brilliant track record as a councillor and we would be delighted to have him return to the Green group.
“His experience as a councillor for the ward means he can get stuck in, working hard for residents in Brunswick and Adelaide.
“Labour won the seat by just six votes so every Green vote counts. For another voice to hold Labour to account, Ollie is the only choice to vote for on Thursday 4 July.”
This is such good news – have met Ollie before and he’s such a nice guy. Relieved Greens have selected someone who knows their stuff and is properly community minded.
Well at least if he wins he won’t have to be Phelims dogsbody any more. However Ollie, do remember that emails last forever 😊
He is a nice chap but I thought he left because he didn’t want to do this anymore. It would be interesting to hear who the other two candidates are?
Ollie was an astute cllr on P & R who one year found a significant calculation error in budget agenda papers the Cttee had to OK ahead of Full Council adoption.
Councillors in General do not study agenda papers that closely! The committee system is useful for scrutiny & debate of detail, which could be a real problem with the new Cabinet system that puts it all on one person instead of 6 to 10 or 12.
Budget papers will still go to the Cabinet before they go to full Council.
The cabinet meets in public and anyone can attend – including councillors as well as the public. It’s made up of 10 members who will make the decions. It’s not just the leader acting on their own.
I wish more people read council meeting papers. Debate would be much more informed whether in the council chamber or on here.
Informed discussion is something I enjoy seeing from you Chris. You’re right, it does make for more interesting debate.
“Mr Sykes represented the ward for eight years from 2011 to 2019 and was the Green group’s lead for finance on Brighton and Hove City Council.”
Given the Greens’ history in dodgy financial decisions – like the i360 and then the outgoing council’s need to close all public toilets – this guy should not be let anywhere near a council seat in future.
It’s already surprising that the current Green leader, Steve Davis, is still in his position, after his own reckless financial decisions which have cost us tax payers wasted millions.
Just imagine for example spaffing loads of council tax money on a privatised bike share scheme which overnight became unaffordable, effectively wiping out the original idea for the service.
Greens did take the toilets out of the budget papers Billy (https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2023/02/01/relief-over-public-toilets-as-greens-rethink-closures/) – I know it’s been spun differently by other parties since, but my understanding is that Greens threw everything dreadful they had to consider into the budget papers, but listened to feedback and took the worst out when they knew the final government settlement.
Biggest culprit in balancing the council’s books is linked to the government’s savage cuts to local authority spending. Think it’s been challenging for both Labour and Greens at different points – with both having to make dreadful decisions about what to cut.
PS – the i360 was championed by Labour as far back as 2006, so although their support has been has been up and down over the years (depending on how close to an election we are possibly), it had cross party support for most of the time when it progressed. Greens have never had a majority administration, so EVERY decision they have taken will have had to have had some support from another party in the city at some point. Between 2015-July 2020 it was also a minority Labour council, as it is now (although a majority now) – so Ollie would only have led on a couple of budgets during the period you mention.
PrestonParker,
I see you have a selective memory here.
If we talk about the i360 as one example then, yes, at first the original design for a new visitor attraction did seem like a long term solution to the problem that the West Pier’s decline had caused many councils, over the decades.
The design itself then changed several times, and they struggled to find private funding for the project.
And when the final costings and projected attendance figures came before the council, it was clear they simply didn’t stack up, and that was why private financing of the project had not been forthcoming. The suggestion was then made that the council themselves might use their access to Government funding, to allow the project go ahead. And it was at that stage that Labour withdrew support for the project, because the alarm bells were already ringing. It was clearly not a good investment, as we see today.
However the i360 still went ahead as the Greens and Conservatives combined to outvote the Labour group.
That poor decision by the Greens and the Tories is now costing us council tax payers millions per year.
A more recent financial decision made by the Greens at our expense was to bankroll the new Beryl Bike Share business – a private company that now supplies us with bikes that most people can’t afford to ride And so the original concept of a bike share scheme, as the cheapest and healthiest local transport system, is totally lost. You only have to look at the hire charges to see how getting a daily or weekly bus pass is much cheaper.
Not sure you’re reading the room Billy. Ollie is a popular candidate (across party boundaries) and you keep bringing in issues and decisions that he didn’t lead on. He wasn’t even a councillors when the Beryl Bikes thing came in.
I don’t know the detail of the bike scheme, but in general outsourcing services can be problematic (which it’s why it’s so worrying that Wes Streeting is so set on it for the NHS!).
You’re clearly a Labour super fan – but Ollie worked hard and earned a lot of respect when he was a councillor, and we need more people with kindness and integrity in politics.
Just 6 votes? There were over 1000 postal votes unaccounted over the whole of Brighton & Hove because Royal Mail failed to get deliver them on time to the Town Hall.
Hannah and Phelim must be devastated not to be selected. Poor Hannah almost had to be sedated after losing her seat by 8 votes in the May 2023 local election.
Ollie’s a nice guy but the cat’s out of the bag now. The Greens ain’t Green. Just had to report the non-pick up of our recycling yet again. CityClean seem to be allergic to recycling.
But it’s a Labour majority council at the moment, so if your recycling hasn’t been picked up then it’s not down to the Greens Barry 🙂 as they don’t run the council (it’s mostly been Labour for the last 10 years and it is now.
My point was that my recycling didn’t get picked up by the Greens either and they were meant to be Green.
Fair enough – your comment just read a bit differently. Am always amazed how many people think it’s a Green council, when it’s mostly been Labour for the last 10 or so years.
Service def needs to improve though, irrespective of who runs the council, and the issues with the Veolia contract (who process recycling for the council) could and should have been rethought ages ago. Even when the council entered into the contract 20 years ago, common sense says that the recycling needs today might be quite different to back then, so such an inflexible contract is a problem too.
Either way – hope your bins get collected soon!
Good news! An honest, sensible politician, so rare these days. Regardless of political party, we need quality councillors on our council.
It’s good that he is a decent candidate, but unfortunate that he isn’t running under an untarnished banner.
The Greens have never proposed anything other than just rearranging the deckchairs. It’s Labour that currently have a plan to create a nationalised energy company and restart wind turbine manufacture in Scotland. The Greens have no plans beyond gluing themselves to the road and banner-waving.
If he ran under labour, and used his passion for achieving zero carbon inside a party in power, it would be a much better contribution. It really is time to move on. The Greens are also tarnished with the SNP, which is even more an indication of really bad judgement.
A lot of people really don’t seem to know that the Greens never had a majority so anything they proposed (including E-bike sponsorship) could only be adopted if it also got the backing of Labour. If you want accountability at least seek it from Labour as well, they had the power to vote proposals down and it was their support or veto that decided whether any green proposal was adopted, or not.