Six candidates are standing in a by-election in Goldsmid ward for a seat on Brighton and Hove City Council on Thursday 25 June.
The seat became vacant when former councillor Jackie O’Quinn resigned.
The six candidates are Louis Bird (Conservative), Nadia Barton Ahmad (Green), Philip Berman (Labour), Kim Leyland-Walker (Liberal Democrat), Luke Willmoth (Reform UK) and Glenn Kelly (Trade Union and Socialist Coalition).
Each candidate has answered questions about local issues and why electors should vote for them.
Here are the responses from Glenn Kelly, 64, a retired former trade union regional officer.
Why do you want to be a councillor?
To organise a fight to stop cuts to our local services and the increases in council tax.
For 16 years councillors from all the main parties have simply passed on Tory and now Labour austerity without organising a fightback.
We need councillors who will fight the cuts and build a campaign of local residents and trade unionists to fight for more funding.
Why do you want to stand in this ward?
I have lived here for the last 14 years and have suffered the same decline in services and massive increases in council tax as other residents.
I want to show that councillors have a choice – rather than voting for cuts they can argue for a no-cuts, needs-based budget, using reserves and borrowing powers to stop the cuts and using this to mobilise a campaign to restore council funding.
No other candidates have pledged to support this position.
What are the key issues specific to this ward?
Lack of affordable housing, particularly for young people forced to live in expensive HMOs given the lack of decent council housing.
There have also been cuts to opening hours at the nearby Hove Library. I helped to organise a recent campaign against library cuts across the city and will continue to pressure the council to restore library funding during the election and after.
Falling birth rates are affecting pupil numbers in primary and secondary schools. How would you manage this issue?
I would use the opportunity to cut class sizes, meaning we can maintain the same number of schools while reducing the strain on teaching staff and giving our children a better education.
Parents, teaching staff and pupils should be the ones to democratically decide how our schools are organised and run.
Temporary and emergency housing is a huge expense. What measures should be taken to reduce this cost?
The council should bring all outsourced housing services back in-house under council control, freeze all council rents and start a programme of mass council house-building.
Lifetime tenancies on council houses that are available for all would massively reduce the reliance on temporary accommodation.
Relying on private developers to build more unaffordable housing will not create the secure homes that we need.
How would you improve and maintain roads in the ward?
I would argue for the use of council reserves and borrowing powers to ensure a major scheme of repairs were initiated.
Proper investment in a reliable and genuinely affordable bus service – owned and run by the council – would reduce traffic and car use as well.
Polling stations will be open from 7am to 10pm. Valid photographic ID is required to vote.
Council tax is one of those aspects that everyone agrees with and likes when you say “no council tax rises” but the reality is that it will never happen. The main income for budget is government; he should be running to be an MP if he’s wanting that kind of change.
Council tax rises are completely within the council’s control, MP’s don’t have any official say over the rising of council taxes. He’s pledged to lead a campaign petitioning central government to restore council funding. I don’t understand what the complaint is here, his proposal is perfectly possible and ideal.
You’re absolutely right that council sets the tax rate, however, practically they have to set a viable budget and are obliged by law to do so. Think of all the things that are already being squeezed already, if you were to make that worse by not increasing council tax as normal, you have to consider what are you sacrificing to do that? Disability benefits? Provisions for children?
He doesn’t need to a ward councillor to petition central government, and ironically, the best place to do that would be within the Labour party right now. To actually be able to do more than a petition, he’d need to be an MP.
I like the spirit of his idea, I do – it’s just not a reason to vote for him, in my opinion, because it doesn’t change anything.