Five candidates are standing in a by-election in Queen’s Park ward for a seat on Brighton and Hove City Council (BHCC) next Thursday (24 September).
The seat became vacant when former Labour councillor Milla Gauge resigned.
The five candidates are Stefan Speckesser (Conservative), Mark Strong (Green), Steve Gladwin (Labour), Rüdiger Dikty-Daudiyan (Liberal Democrat) and John Shepherd (Reform UK).
Each candidate has answered questions about local issues and why electors should vote for them.
Here are the responses from Labour candidate Steve Gladwin, 61, a retired NHS director, public relations specialist and journalist.
Why do you want to be a councillor?
Put simply, I want to give something back to my community.
When I retired earlier this summer, I asked myself how I could best use my skills and experience.
As a former NHS director, small business owner, PR professional and journalist, I concluded that serving as a city councillor was the best way to contribute.
I believe passionately in social justice and helping everyone fulfil their potential.
I grew up in social housing and went on to have a successful career because strong public services gave me opportunities.
Labour made those opportunities possible and I want everyone to have the same life chances.
Why do you want to stand in this ward?
I have lived locally for nearly 30 years and know Queen’s Park well.
I regularly walk my dog in the park, use the recycling bins in Queen’s Park Terrace, cycle down Freshfield Road to the Brighton Swimming Centre and have many friends in the ward.
Queen’s Park faces real challenges including relative poverty, poor housing, anti-social behaviour, protecting its green spaces and ensuring its roads are safe for everyone.
Since taking control from the Greens in 2023, Labour has made real progress in Queen’s Park and across the city. I want to be part of that journey and help build on what has been achieved.
What are the key issues specific to this ward?
Behind the façade of the large houses surrounding Queen’s Park lies some of the worst relative poverty in the city.
I want to help tackle the inequality and disadvantage this brings.
The Labour council, working with Andy Burnham’s government, is already making significant progress through stronger renters’ rights, landlord licensing, the abolition of VAT on fuel bills, a fairer school admissions process and investment in play facilities.
I strongly support this work and want to play my part in ensuring that everyone in Queen’s Park, whatever their circumstances, has the opportunity to thrive.
Falling birth rates are affecting pupil numbers in primary and secondary schools. How should this issue be managed?
School funding is allocated per pupil so empty classroom places mean schools lose vital funding.
The Labour council has therefore made difficult but necessary decisions to reduce admission numbers at some primary schools, ensuring pupils, especially the most vulnerable, receive the teaching resources they deserve.
I support efforts to explore school federations to improve efficiency, alongside the Labour council’s extensive council and social housebuilding programme which will help more families afford to remain in the city and support sustainable pupil numbers.
Temporary and emergency housing is a huge cost to the council. What measures should be taken to reduce this cost?
The housing crisis was fuelled by the last Tory government’s failure to build enough homes. Our Labour council is supporting homeless people through temporary and emergency accommodation while delivering Brighton’s biggest boost to housebuilding in a generation, helping tackle homelessness and rough sleeping.
To reduce the cost of temporary accommodation, the council must continue purchasing its own properties and block-booking accommodation to secure better value.
By contrast, the Greens relied on expensive spot-purchasing of temporary accommodation, resulting
in excessive costs and benefiting poor landlords.
How would you improve and maintain roads in the ward?
I welcome the Labour council’s record investment in road resurfacing this year: more than £8.8 million including £1 million to tackle damaged and uneven pavements.
Years of underfunding by the last Tory government left a significant backlog including in Queen’s Park.
My priority will be ensuring Queen’s Park roads are prioritised for resurfacing, particularly bus routes where potholes cause discomfort for passengers and damage vehicles.
I am pleased that Craven Road is due to go out to tender and, if elected, I will push to ensure that work progresses as quickly as possible.
Given the reasons for the by-election, what steps will you take to ensure the council complies with its legal obligations to protect children including those who may be confused about their gender?
The Labour council has a strong record of protecting children including those questioning their gender.
In 2023, we acted to end a major safeguarding scandal overseen by the Greens, during which 137 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children went missing from a Hove hotel.
For trans and gender-questioning children, the Labour council has a trans inclusion toolkit supporting schools to ensure every child can access education free from discrimination and stigma while meeting their legal and safeguarding responsibilities.
Our priority must always be the safety, wellbeing and dignity of every child.
Polling stations will be open from 7am to 10pm. Valid photographic ID is required to vote.
It’s good that Steve Gladwin recognises the poverty and deprivation in Queen’s Park. As he says himself, ‘behind the façade of the large houses.. lies some of the worst relative poverty in the city.’ That is an important point, and it applies to too many areas of our city.
But it’s worth noting that this is exactly what’s wrong with how the Labour Council’s secondary school admissions changes over the last two years have treated those children in the Dorothy Stringer/ Varndean
catchment including those in Queens Park, as uniformly privileged, when clearly it isn’t. This has created real uncertainty for parents in the catchment, including those whose income sits just above the threshold for Targeted Free School Meals, who now bottom of a long list admissions priorities, and may face a long journey to a school outside their own area as a result.
Striking that our resident Labour stooge ‘Benjamin’ who pops up more often than a Starmer u-turn, hasn’t commented here, but has done so on all the other candidates profiles.
Hardly, Councillor – bit telling that is the level you aspire to.
No, I don’t comment on Labour’s candidate because of the inherent perceived bias of anything that I would say about him. Your comment is not only unnecessarily personal but also continues a troubling pattern of dismissive rhetoric aimed at undermining residents through partisan sniping. You should be holding yourself to a higher standard; name-calling and tribalism just prove why Conservatives disappeared overnight into irrelevancy.
I feel sorry for the constituents of Westdene for having such a low-quality agitator. Shameful behaviour.
We all know who you really are – just be open, honest & up front.
Ah, so now the tactic is to try to bully me into doxxing myself with vague, evasive, and non-substantive comments, attempting to imply hidden motives without stating them – a classic tactic to avoid accountability for your own words. Purely defensive and rhetorical.
How unprofessional. Shameful behaviour from an elected official.
I’m disappointed that Steve Gladwin doesn’t really address the question asked at the end.
The question was not whether the Council has a “strong record” on safeguarding, nor was it about the 2023 unaccompanied asylum-seeker issue. It asked what steps he would take to ensure the Council complies with its legal safeguarding obligations in relation to children questioning their gender. He says the Council’s Toolkit guidance supports schools to meet their legal and safeguarding responsibilities. But given the reasons for this by-election, surely the obvious question is how, if elected, would he ensure that this is actually the case — particularly where concerns have been raised about the Council’s guidance and practice.
The LGA’s own guidance for councillors says they should be asking questions such as: “Is there effective scrutiny of child safeguarding issues?” and “How do you know whether your services keep children safe?”
As one of the residents whose concerns Cllr Milla Gauge tried to raise before resigning, I had hoped for a much more specific answer about scrutiny, evidence and assurance — not simply a repetition of the Council’s existing position. “Safety, wellbeing and dignity of every child” is something few people would disagree with. The important question is how you ensure that those principles are actually being delivered in practice. I was a council employee for nearly 20 years and worked with schools – ‘safeguarding first’ meant professional curiosity when resident concerns were raised. I suspect Steve knows this but is obliged to tow the ‘nothing to see here’ Bella Sankey line.
Oh and if someone rolls out the ‘this was an NHS matter, nothing to do with the council’ line again I’ll scream.
This was an NHS matter, nothing to do with the council.
However, it did prompt a wider, independent review on body dysmorphia in young people and transition therapy, which will doubtless inform council policies, like the toolkit, to improve, which is ultimately the shared goal here.
For the love of god!!! Ok – I’ll try to stay calm.
Nobody is saying the Council was directly responsible for WellBN’s clinical decisions. The question is what the Council should do about its own safeguarding responsibilities when serious concerns are raised by local parents and residents.
You say the NHS matter has prompted an independent review which will “inform council policies, like the Toolkit”. Fine — but that makes the question of Council responsibility more, not less, relevant. Why should the Council simply wait for an external review to tell it whether its own policies need changing?
Safeguarding requires ‘professional curiosity’ and challenge when concerns are raised. HOSC’s statutory role includes scrutinising the planning, provision and operation of health services in Brighton & Hove, and the Council’s own arrangements expressly include scrutiny of NHS Sussex/ICBs and collaborative working with health agencies.
And residents have already raised these concerns through HOSC (and privately – across 3 years).
So the question isn’t “was WellBN an NHS matter?” Of course it was. The question is: what did BHCC do with the safeguarding concerns it received, what did it assess, and what evidence does it have that its own arrangements and policies are sufficiently robust?
That’s the question Steve’s answer doesn’t address.
So you want to distance yourself from the various times written and spoken where you directly accuse council and councillors of harming children and being responsible for WellBN? Fine, taking accountability for your own words doesn’t particularly add much to this conversation at this point.
Why should it wait? Easy, because waiting for that conclusion allows a more comprehensive and informed set of improvements than a potentially wrong one based on a kneejerk reaction. Because it allow independent scrutiny of the topic of transgender individuals and medical interventions, and offer a clinical insight to also inform those improvements.
The answer is the same as it was before WellBN happened and will continue well after WellBN. It is a continuous process, constant iteration, continuing professional development. WellBN is effectively irrelevant, it could be any new situation. The evidence has always been there. The fact the toolkit isn’t the one and only version, that’s been reiterated multiple times already.
If Steve really cared about poverty, he wouldn’t be standing for the poverty party who are, among many other crimes against the electorate;
Taxing small businesses out of existence, including the late lamented R-Bar and Charles St Tap
Shafting WASPIS,
Shafting farmers
Shafting pensioners and the disabled
Refusing to take action on rising fuel, food and costs
Legislating and taxing landlords out of existence – and these are mostly the compliant landords because the bad landlords just ignore everything – adding to the council house and homeless burden
Bringing in punitive traffic measures such as Red Routes which seek to fine people for parking rather than charge them.
Closing libraries, community centres and daycare centres, which are a lifeline for so many trapped under the poverty line.
The Labour party was founded to represent working people but has done nothing but betray working people since Tony Blair.
So we should talk about how Labour supports business with the Brighton & Hove Economic Recovery Plan, which included grants, rate relief, and advice. Or the Business Rates Relief which extended 100% retail, hospitality, and leisure relief for eligible small businesses. The High Street Fund? Or how it has supported local enterprise through initiatives like the Brighton & Hove Local Enterprise Partnership.
Brighton & Hove Labour Council has publicly supported the WASPI campaign, in fact it passed a motion in Full Council backing fair transitional state pension arrangements for women affected.
Agricultural policy is set by National Defra, but locally look at how it has been supporting Brighton & Hove Food Partnership. Bryan Coyle does some fantastic work on this. Also urban projects like the Moulsecoomb Forest Garden and Wildlife Project, and advocates for sustainable, local food systems.
Labour has maintained Council Tax Support Scheme for low-income pensioners, funded Age UK Brighton & Hove and other organisations to provide advice, befriending, and practical support, and ran several winter warmth schemes and energy advice sessions to help older people manage fuel costs, working with community centres to outreach.
Possability People have been awarded grants from BHCC. Made progress on accessible transport and public realm improvements, Cllr Taylor would be pleased to tell you, I’m sure. Brighton & Hove Cost of Living Hub was established by Labour, it funded warm banks in libraries, community centres, and churches, expanded free school meal provision and supported holiday food programmes through charities like FareShare.
Selective licensing in areas with high levels of poor housing have driven up standards, targeting rogue and non-compliant landlords, not responsible ones, taken legal action against landlords who fail to meet safety standards, offered grants and loans to help landlords improve properties, and has built more homes than any other party before it in this council – admittingly not hard to beat Tories zero completions. Not to mention the council supports and funds many community centres, through things like EDB, EIB and the Catalyst Fund.
Labour have done an awful lot for working people and empowered them. Sounds like you just need reminding of it. It’s a long list after all!
You are so spot on.
Unfortunately, Labour have been the worst custodians since elected in 2023, in the last 50+ years here. Their record is dire. Businesses closing, nighttime economy is struggling, visitor numbers still not to pre covid levels, over night stays down, some of the highest parking charges in the country, no park & ride, red double lines being installed, even the owners of the Palace Oier have had enough! High business rates. The list goes on.
Next year – residents will have the opportunity to boot them out, if they don’t lose their majority beforehand. Even many of the Labour Councillors have had enough.
You’re on a roll with disinformation today, councillor. Let’s fact check everything:
1) According to Visit Brighton, visitors and overnight stays, and visitor spending have been showing year-on-year growth, and recovering well compared to contemporaries (about 96%), let’s remind ourselves, Conservatives mishandling of COVID and lockdowns caused massive damage to business.
2) Early 2026 shows continued growth, especially in domestic tourism and short-break visitors. International visitors are recovering steadily, though global travel patterns and exchange rates are holding this back, which isn’t a party specfic-issue.
3) The ONS Business Demography Dataset showed that B&H saw 1,340 new VAT-registered businesses opened, the first net gain since 2019, particularly around digital & creative industries, green tech, health & wellbeing, food & drink. There is a decline mainly in traditional retail reflecting national trends, not local failure.
4) Brighton & Hove Economic Recovery Monitor reports improving footfall in key areas, and increased occupancy in commercial property.
5) Brighton & Hove Local Transport Plan 2024–2029 reaffirmed that traditional P&R is not viable. Instead, the council is advancing a variety of other methods and improvements to public transport.
6) The Palace Pier Trust Annual Statement Notes ongoing cooperation with council, and there is no mention of council policy as a factor in operational decisions, or them “having enough” (Perhaps you shouldn’t try to defame other groups by making up things they haven’t said.)
7) Business rates are set nationally, and nothing to do with the council.
8) The Brighton & Hove Night Time Economy Report shows that there has been no further decline in venue numbers since 2023, a growth in early-evening dining and cultural events, and highlights a variety of council-supported initiatives, showing stabilisation.
The facts don’t lie: visitor numbers are up, businesses are growing, and every pound from parking goes back into our streets and buses. Your claims don’t match the data, but Labour’s recovery does.
Tired attempted political point scoring doesn’t work here Councillor Lyons. I want Conservatives to be better, rather than this smartprice version of Reform it’s become. Silly performative rhetoric doesn’t help you or your party recover from it’s self-engineered irrelevance.
Selective & inaccurate responses Benny, but then, only a few Labour Councillors listen to you (for now), who I suspect won’t be around after May, then what are you going to do?
Vagueposting remains vague. Notice you weren’t able to make a single substantive counter to a single point made, for the fourth or fifth time in a row now? Remaining purely defensive and rhetorical. Not really sure some vague threatening language is a particularly good look either, Councillor.
Again, how unprofessional. Truly shameful behaviour from an elected official.