Labour has selected the party’s candidate for the Queen’s Park by-election which is due to take place on Thursday 24 September.
Steve Gladwin, 61, a former NHS worker and journalist, was chosen at a meeting last night (Thursday 20 August) to run for the vacant seat on Brighton and Hove City Council.
Mr Gladwin said that he would focus on tackling the cost of living, particularly pensioner and fuel poverty, and make this a central focus of Labour’s campaign in the ward.
He said: “Behind the grand facades around Queen’s Park itself are communities facing some of the worst relative poverty in the city. That is being felt particularly hard by pensioners and families struggling to pay their bills.
“I want to be a councillor who is visible, accessible and focused on the issues that make a real difference to people’s lives.”
Mr Gladwin, who previously ran a successful small business, said that supporting Brighton and Hove’s economy would also be a priority.
He said: “As well as direct help and advice to those struggling, we have to make sure Brighton and Hove is thriving as a city – and economic regeneration is one of my key drivers.”
Mr Gladwin lives locally and spent nearly 30 years working in the NHS, including as an executive director with several NHS trusts.
Earlier in his career, he worked in local government and as a journalist in Brighton and Hove, including as political editor of the Argus in its heyday. He retired from the NHS earlier this summer.
The Labour leader of the council, Bella Sankey, said: “Over the last three years, we’ve worked hard to improve things for Queen’s Park residents – from refurbishing the children’s playground and the public loos to road resurfacing and rolling out landlord licensing to give more rights to renters. But we know there is so much more to do.”
Councillor Sankey added: “At a time when many within Queen’s Park are struggling with the cost of living, they deserve a councillor who will turn up, get stuck in and put the ward first. They have that person in Steve – and I’m excited to get the campaign started.”
The party said: “Labour has a strong track record of delivery in Queen’s Park and across Brighton and Hove since winning a majority on the council in May 2023.
“From the largest rollout of solar panels in the council’s history to the introduction of new neighbourhood officers to provide support to residents in social housing, Labour has been putting people and the climate first.”.
The by-election – the third in the two-member ward in 18 months – was called when Labour councillor Milla Gauge resigned her seat on the council two weeks ago.
She said that the council was not doing enough to protect children who were confused about their gender identity.
Councillor Sankey responded by saying that she had “persisted in making generalised accusations” but had been “unable to point to a specific safeguarding concerns resulting from the council’s trans inclusive approach”.
The resulting by-election is the eighth since the local elections in May 2023, all caused by the resignation of Labour councillors. The party has retained five of the seats and the Greens have won three.
After the local elections, Labour had 38 out of the 54 seats. It now has 31. The Greens had seven but now have 11, including a former Labour councillor who became an Independent before switching to the Greens.
Two councillors elected as Labour candidates at the 2023 local elections now sit as Independents as does one former Conservative. The Tories have yet to announce their candidate.
A hustings is due to take place at St Luke’s Church Hall on Thursday 17 September from 7pm to 8.30pm. The chance to put questions to the candidates has been organised by the non-political St Luke’s Residents’ Association.
More of the same from Labour. Continuity Starmer.
Except Starmer isn’t in charge any more and the focus is now on improving communities and support with the cost of living. Other parties talk the talk but have not offered anything locally. Just the usual, we are not Labour. They have been worse, vanity projects, i360 debt, introducing tuition fees, trashing the economy and introducing austerity.
Personally, I think Labour are improving day by day and our city is benefiting from grown ups looking after it for once.
Your optimism is to be commended albeit not a view that seems to be held by many based on the three years since 2023….
In the spirit of Oscar Wilde:
“To lose one councillor may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose eight looks like carelessness.”
Queen’s Park residents deserve a councillor and a leader who take safeguarding seriously. The number of children in Sussex being funnelled to WellBN should have raised alarm bells at B&H council and East & West Sussex councils, and made councillors consider their own roles.
The funding of Allsorts (£250k last year from the 3 Sussex councils) and a culture that victimises anyone who refuses to swallow gender ideology is surely one of the main drivers of this epidemic?
Concerns were raised and I believe an investigation has just concluded. It’s important to have the full context and for the findings examined constructively.
Concerns and complaints about systemic safeguarding issues across many BHCC services have been raised for many years, WellBN is simply a most recent example.
And don’t forget why this bi-election is necessary too….
“ The by-election – the third in the two-member ward in 18 months – was called when Labour councillor Milla Gauge resigned her seat on the council two weeks ago.
She said that the council was not doing enough to protect children who were confused about their gender identity”
Steve Gladwin’s professional background makes his position on the WellBN affair and Milla’s reason for resigning particularly interesting.
Given his NHS experience, and as a member of the executive and editorial team at CEPiP, where evidence, careful assessment, clinical risk and the particular difficulties of treating children and adolescents are plainly relevant, I would hope he would recognise the importance of professional curiosity and organisational learning.
That creates an interesting question for the new Labour candidate. Will he take seriously the safeguarding implications of what happened at WellBN and support an independent review of the wider local system — including schools, Council services and their relationships with healthcare?
Or will he simply repeat the Council leadership’s position that the NHS investigation is the end of the matter?
The former would seem much more consistent with the principles of evidence-based safeguarding. Luckily Queen’s Park voters will have an opportunity to ask him.
He may be a perfectly nice chap but what he is promising will not be in his gift to deliver.
Plus it his his party which has made the nation so broke and betrayed farmers, British businesses, Waspi’s, pensioners. landlords and others
It is his party which is prioritising other countries’ wars, immigration, data centres, digital ID, surveillance technology and active travel schemes over spending British taxes to fund the needs of British people from schools, courts and the NHS to town and city infrastructure and national food and fuel security. The tories can take some of the blame but Labour have been carrying on the damage ever since and at ever greater pace, if Labour are claiming to be better.
I would argue that Tory austerity inflicted most of the damage and that’s why it’s been difficult to get back on a sound footing.
Every recent Green council candidate has said they will sort out, what are nationally controlled issues when they cannot and pretty much silent on local issues.
At least Labour are doing things despite much still to be done. Better nurse than worse.
Oh, you should keep a slightly more open mind, Katy! We love Steve and Kerry on our patch – Greens who genuinely care about and deliver for our community. It’s also been rather nice to have some continuity, rather than the seemingly endless resignations, defections and by-elections we’ve seen from Brighton Labour.
Do you have any insight into what’s actually going wrong within the local Labour group? From the outside, so much of the recent drama seems entirely self-inflicted and rather self-absorbed. Given the number of councillors Labour has lost since 2023, surely there must be more to it than simple bad luck?
Good points. Labour are not known as the ‘Poverty Party’ for nothing.
We don’t want another person imposed, we need a councillor embedded in the community and ward. Every candidate Labour have selected for Queens Park has either lied, was imposed or has cleared off!
This ward deserve better than a journalist and NHS Communications Manager / Director.
How long has he lived in Brighton / in the Queen’s Park ward?
See he was a former comms person at councils, they gatekeep and spread fake news.
Say no to labour Queens Park! I will be!
Care to evidence your accusations? A leopard doesn’t change its spots.
Will Mr Gladwin prevent his party from privatising the sea front paddling pool – one of the few free seaside activities left for low income families – when Ms Sankey can be bothered to open it?
https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2026/08/21/council-asks-private-operators-to-bid-to-run-seafront-paddling-pool/
It is a shame really because he has obviously not been filled in on the issues in Queens Park and has not realized that residents concerns and issues are and go directly against the leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, . So it will end up being another by-election, I would imagine, if Labour gets Queens Park this time.
I suppose it depends how quick the scandal breaks regarding the Labour Party in Brighton and the conflict going on within the party. Especially as some of the councillors within the cabinet are not seen as being tribal enough.