The community campaign group Acorn has issued apologies to two Queen’s Park by-election candidates after saying that they had refused to respond to questions.
The organisation, which campaigns to support renters’ rights, apologised on its social media accounts to Independent candidate Adrian Hart and Labour candidate Simon Charleton over the allegations which breach election law. Misrepresenting an election candidate is a criminal offence.
Images stating Mr Hart’s response to the questions now feature on Acorn’s social media sites.
The organisation said: “We said that he (Mr Hart) had refused to answer our questions on housing ahead of the Queen’s Park by-election and this was incorrect – he had got in touch with us but this was missed.
“We’re happy to publish Adrian Hart’s corrected stance on our three demands below and apologise again to Adrian for getting it wrong – we made a mistake and hold our hands up.
“We’re happy to say that Adrian has backed Acorn’s stances on each of the three questions and look forward to working with him if he is elected.”
The questions were
- Will you use your power to fight private developers that refuse to build affordable housing?
- Will you ensure all council-owned land is earmarked for council housing not sold to developers?
- Will you stand against the sell-off of the Freshfield Industrial Estate?
Mr Hart, who is standing for election in Queen’s Park for the fourth time as an Independent, was a vocal campaigner against the development of the former American Express site.
Mr Hart said: “I led the Scrap the Plan campaign in 2018 where our streets fought the developer plans for unaffordable housing in Edward Street.
“We lost but the community then won the lease of abandoned council land and that is now White Street Community Garden – a patch of land we were, in 2019, more than willing to hand over for genuine social housing.
“I’ve lived in the ward for 21 years. My son, now 21, born in Brighton and Hove, will never be able to afford to live in the city he was born. Fighting (and properly defining) the housing crisis is personal for my family.”
Acorn did not post on social media about Labour’s candidate Simon Charleton but did print and distribute leaflets stating he had refused to respond to the questions.
The union published its apology on Facebook, saying: “Acorn Brighton would like to apologise for a mistake we made in printed leaflets ahead of the Queen’s Park by-election in relation to our questions to Labour candidate Simon Charleton.
“We said that he had refused to answer our questions on housing and this was incorrect – he had got in touch with us but this was missed.
“We are publishing and distributing Simon Charleton’s corrected stance on our three demands and apologise again to Simon for getting it wrong.”
Mr Charleton, the Labour candidate, said: “Improving and building more social and affordable housing is central to everything I believe in for Queen’s Park.
“Locally, I supported the new housing development on the corner of Queen’s Park Road and Down Terrace when other candidates in this by-election either ignored it or hadn’t even heard of Queen’s Park at that point.
“I’m proud also of all the work the Labour council is doing to bring down the long list of overdue housing repairs we inherited from the Greens and the new neighbourhood teams to help tackle anti-social behaviour.”
Brighton Acorn said: “Acorn reached out to all candidates but obviously wires got crossed with responses.
“We set an initial deadline of Friday 29 August for responses and, after reaching out to everyone, published the responses we had received.
“We’re happy to correct the record and are pleased both Simon and Adrian have pledged to work with us.
“We’ve corrected the online posts and leaflets and look forward to holding the winner to their word.”
Six candidates are standing in a by-election in Queen’s Park for a seat on Brighton and Hove City Council (BHCC) on Thursday 18 September 2025.
The seat became vacant when Labour councillor Tristram Burden resigned, citing a conflict of interest in his new job as a local authority inspector at the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
The candidates are Simon Charleton (Labour), Sunny Choudhury (Conservative), Rudi Dikty-Daudiyan (Liberal Democrat), Adrian Hart (Independent), Marina Lademacher (Green) and John Shepherd (Reform UK).
Polling day is on Thursday 18 September, with polling stations due to be open from 7am to 10pm.
The polling stations are at
- Craven Vale Resource Centre, Craven Road, Brighton
- St Luke’s Church, Queen’s Park Road, Brighton
- Barnard Community Centre, St John’s Mount, Mount Pleasant
- Millwood Community Centre, Nelson Row, Carlton Hill
To vote in person at a polling station, electors must bring photo identification (ID).
Did Acorn not ask Simon Charleton about the multiple anti-immigration and anti-trans retweets that it was reported he shared? That’s the big question.
Apparently Simon Charleton has since said he retweeted the multiple questionable tweets by “mistake” and the content of his MULTIPLE retweets “do not represent my views, or those of the local Labour party”. But who accidentally retweets so many things like that by mistake! If what he says is true, then it’s pretty careless to repost so many tweets in error.
The questions they asked were about housing and are listed in the articles.
Acorn’s area of interest is housign so they aren’t going to ask questions not related to housing.
Other groups will ask questions based on their focus.
The candidate most disadvantaged by this is the independent Adrian Hart. I see today that he is ALSO named on the hand delivered ACORN leaflet (mentioned in the article) alongside Labour’s Simon Charleton. To say “refused” when in fact Adrian had emailed ACORN may have been incompetence rather than a ploy (and yes they’ve apologised) but can this criminal offence be undone?
When I looked at the ACORN leaflet and read “…Adrian Hart refused to speak to ACORN despite repeated requests” I knew it couldn’t be true because I’ve known him for decades and know about his housing campaign work. But others will read it, take a dim view of him, and decide to place their vote on September 18th elsewhere. There is considerable online poverty in the ward and many more working residents besides are far too busy to pick up on ACORN’s online apology. The damage is done, they’ll just remember the leaflet.
With the labour candidate similarly smeared, is it the Greens who will reap the benefit? (Marina Lademacher will, I hope, do the honourable thing and make a public statement in solidarity with her two opponents). The only way this error can be undone is by ACORN delivering a new leaflet to the 8,000 plus households comprising this ward. This will need to apologise, retract and spell out the true position of these two candidates.
Pretty pathetic by ACORN and despite the apology you have to wonder how their replies where ‘missed’. All seems a little suspicious.
Acorn the renters union that now regularly campaigns on a pseudo socialist manifesto of any issue not just rent protection.
Seems to have been hijacked and redirected by momentum leaning lefties.
“ Misrepresenting an election candidate is a criminal offence.”
So has a criminal investigation being opened???
I’m aware of at least one report filed with police yes. All eyes on ACORN now – they have to produce a leaflet that satisfies these two candidates and deliver very very quickly to 8,000 plus households (and even that might not be enough).