The Greens have selected their candidate for the by-election that is due to be held in Goldsmid ward for a seat on Brighton and Hove City Council.
The party has picked Nadia Barton Ahmad, 22, a local green spaces campaigner, who lives in the Seven Dials area.
Ms Barton Ahmad, 22, a former BHASVIC student, is a community campaigner who currently serves as chair of the Friends of Dyke Road Park.
The Greens said: “She has played a key role in their campaign to protect community green spaces in the area, as well as being a long-term advocate supporting homeless women and campaigning against period poverty.
“With the Greens surging in the polls, record membership numbers and record Green wins expected across the country in this Thursday’s local elections, the Greens are expecting to win in Goldsmid too.
“This confidence was demonstrated as campaigning began immediately on Friday evening in the ward – only hours after the resignation of Councillor Jackie O’Quinn was announced and with no date set for the by-election.
“This will be the seventh by-election in three years of Labour control, all caused by resignations by councillors originally elected in 2023 as Labour representatives.
“The most recent by-election in Queen’s Park last September saw a decisive Green win – overturning a Labour majority of 16 per cent to win with 48 per cent – one of the biggest swings in the council’s history.
“The by-election comes as residents across Brighton and Hove continue to see rents, bills and the cost of living climb as well as concerns over the impact of ongoing cuts under Labour that have included library closures or reductions at four libraries across the city.
“It is expected that both issues will be vital to residents across the by-election campaign.”
Ms Barton Ahmad said: “I’m so proud to be selected as the Green candidate for Goldsmid.
“This election is happening at a critical time for our city: the cost of living keeps going up and too many residents simply don’t feel listened to.
“I grew up in our city and have seen how unaffordable living here has become. Our communities deserve better.
“As a local campaigner for community green spaces, I am committed to standing up for our area and I’m just as committed to standing up for you and your rights.
“We’ve seen the impact Greens can have in our city and beyond – it’s time to send a message that we don’t have to settle for Labour cuts and that hope is possible here too.
“As the councillor for Goldsmid, I will work tirelessly to make Brighton and Hove fairer and greener.”
Councillor Steve Davis, the Green opposition leader on the council, said: “Nadia is an incredibly hard worker and she’ll be a brilliant addition to our Green councillor team after this by-election.
“The last time voters were given a choice between Labour and the Green Party at a by-election in this city, we overturned a big Labour majority to win decisively.
“I am confident that we will do the same again here.”
Jackie O’Quinn resigned late last week, having sat as an Independent since quitting the Labour Party in February. She had represented the ward since 2015.
The council has published a notice of vacancy for the seat but has not yet set the date for a by-election.
Living in the city would be more affordable if the Green Party hadn’t threw away £51m from the coffers, with their i360 disaster and tanked the council reserves through financial incompetence.
Never trust the Greens to run the council.
Living in the city would be affordable if Gordon Brown hadn’t broke the economy!!! Never Trust Liebour.
The main driver of affordability has been objectively due to a lack of house building during the Conservative government’s tenure.
It would also be more affordable living in the city if Labour hadn’t locked the city into a £1 billion PFI loan in 2003 which still has about £150 million left to pay.
It would also be more affordable if nationally Labour weren’t carrying on with Tory austerity. I could go on Katy.
Sounds like you also aren’t aware that it was Labour who gave the i360 away to a private company for peanuts, leaving the loan for residents to pay. It was an incredibly poor deal which over time will be evidenced (when the new owner starts to make a good profit). A very short sighted move imo for Labour councillors to have limited their options in the way they did. It was obvious that after Covid the i360 would be in ire straits, yet they had ZERO plan for it and gave it away to someone who will now turn it around and profit from it. Terrible handling of it all.
Sounds like you are not aware that the i360 has a revenue-sharing agreement with BHCC?
As the leader of the Greens on the city council can you please stop referencing national politics and find a backbone to talk about your party locally. You have had nothing to say locally or proposed any kind of policy since getting hammered in 2023.
Your election strategy is basically ‘we are not Labour’ but that doesn’t wash with a city that has had experience of a green led council. Do you have any sort of manifesto to put before the voters of Goldsmid.
At least Labour locally are hitting mist of their 2023 manifesto pledges and actually appear competent at running the city. No return to hapless vanity projects and warm words such as Net Zero but no plan to deliver.
In respect of your misleading comments regarding the i360.
It ended up being sold for a fraction of what was owed, but by that point the company was already in administration and the debt wasn’t realistically recoverable.
The key issue is what you do next. Continuing to prop it up with more public money would mean asking taxpayers to pour even more into a project that had already failed commercially. The Green Party were told it wasn’t sound when they pushed ahead with the i360. That’s exactly the kind of “throwing good money after bad” people are concerned about.
No administration is going to recover the full loan at that stage – the responsible approach is to minimise further losses to the public purse, not double down on them.
The Green Party brought on this issue and the debt, albeit through a deal with the Tories.
The Green Party wanted to throw taxpayers money away in the hope of a solution that was never there.
Finally, the Green Party are trying to bury a report that will shine a light on their incompetence with the i360.
Your last point really hits home for me, Katy, because Green Party councillors have been calling for more transparency in various aspects, so their attempts to block the report going to scrutiny, for what I can only assume is going to show a less than favourable light on the Green Party’s ability to govern, feels very hypocritical, doesn’t it?
Interesting that there is no info about her job… Does she have one?
What jobs qualify her to stand as a candidate Stu?
Plasterer, coded welder, roughneck, Farage’s FSB handler, General Secretary of the UN, etc?
Any job Gabe.
Putting forward a local 22 year old could be a smart move for the Greens. She’s unlikely to have 10 year old tweets unearthed that are likely to cause the party a headache. Can’t say the same about their Lambeth candidates…
Yeah, I agree – clean slate. The other side of that is that she is going to be seen as inexperienced, being of the age she would have just come out of university.
22, no job, lives with parents. No life experience. Perfect.
52, no job, lives with parents…?
The green Islamic party of Britian.
Polanski has been unmasked as a liar and a fantasist
She may be hard working and a very pleasant person but is it appropriate for someone who is barely out of adolescence to be potentially making decisions about the spending of very large sums of public money? I’m afraid I don’t think it is.