Your questions answered: Queen’s Park by-election candidate Adrian Hart – Independent

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).

Each candidate has answered questions about local issues and why electors should vote for them.

Here are the responses from Independent candidate and writer Adrian Hart, 64, who is not a member of any party and lives in Queen’s Park.

His website is www.adrianhart.com and he tweets @AdrianHartQuPk.

Why do you want to be a councillor?

Inspired by the “Flatpack Democracy” model (worth looking up), this will be my fourth time standing as an Independent.

Each time, I’ve wanted to offer voters an alternative to national party-political interference in local governance.

Too often, the party-tribes use local elections to advance their Westminster ambitions.

If they ever field a winning candidate, known to voters for their integrity and achievements, any commitment to representing constituents is sacrificed to the cabinet party line.

Exclusively focused on efficient city governance, we need councillors who serve people not party. I’d relish the opportunity to hold this administration’s feet to the fire.

Why do you want to stand in this ward?

In 2003, Queens Park became my home. I led the 2018 fight against a people-unfriendly development – the “Edward Street Quarter”.

Our objective of genuinely affordable accommodation and more public realm failed (no Labour administration/ward councillor support whatsoever) but the campaign galvanised residents leading to the formation of White Street Community Garden.

I stand in this by-election in solidarity with the many residents I’ve met across 20 years let down by a succession of smiling, rosette-wearing councillors who, once elected, are seldom seen again.

Whatever the result on Thursday 18 September, let’s hope it doesn’t squander our votes with another lacklustre Labour job-share.

What are the key issues specific to this ward?

Too many by-elections signal deeper issues: our democratic process is faltering. Councillor Milla Gauge demonstrates integrity and has helped residents. However, electoral fraud implicating Councillor Chandni Mistry (now a Tory) damaged trust.

Mistry skipped the 2023 hustings. Once elected, her absences became routine yet Councillor Tristram Burden defended her.

Whatever the result on Thursday 18 September, let’s hope it doesn’t squander our votes with another lacklustre Labour job-share.

What are the key issues specific to this ward?

Mistry skipped the 2023 hustings. Once elected, her absences became routine yet Councillor Tristram Burden defended her.

It should start by recognising the arrogance of its approach to the public.

As parents and school staff mounted Save Our School campaigns, councillors Bella Sankey and Jacob Taylor acted as though the public had nothing useful to say.

One head teacher told me: “Working with us rather than against could’ve achieved the same goal in reducing reception places but in a kinder and more compassionate way.”

The UK low birthrate and the city’s expanding student population are daunting factors.

But topping that is the indifference of our political class to the hostile environment causing families to leave the city.

Brighton and Hove has a housing crisis. Where should new homes be built?

Where? How about: “For whom?” Unless new homes are genuinely affordable or part of a national council-housebuilding programme the city will continue to body-swap its population (and especially families) with the new smart-set.

Thousands of students now occupy homes previously rented by families. Demand pushes up rents. The families move out.

In a city three miles wide and locked in by sea and downs, the damage done by alternating Labour/Green leaders (cosied up with their officer elite) has been profound.

Often members of the smart-set themselves, they can’t resist squeezing in those “luxury” developments that local people invariably cannot afford.

Local government is being restructured in Sussex. New councils will be expected to serve a population of at least 300,000 and possibly 500,000. Brighton and Hove has a population of about 280,000. Should Brighton and Hove expand to the east, west or both?

What a mess. At a packed Peacehaven meeting on Tuesday 12 August, 200 residents opposed Brighton and Hove’s plan to absorb Peacehaven, Telscombe Cliffs and East Saltdean, demanding a referendum.

Many said they were never properly consulted, describing the process as a token “piece of paper” and feared losing local identity and control.

Some accused Brighton of chasing extra tax revenue rather than offering benefits.

The dispute reflects wider reforms pushed by former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, whose drive for unitary authorities and regional mayors ends with “mega-councils”, an eroded local democracy, the demos pushed to the margins. Exactly what Labour want.

Who should be the first directly elected mayor of Sussex and why?

If there has to be an elected mayor, I hope he or she will end the misguided wokery so fashionable at Brighton and Hove City Council – and stop i360-like vanity projects.

In the footsteps of Green leaders came Bella Sankey. In July 2023, she vilified my concerns about extreme gender ideology pouring into schools.

Sussex needs an evidence-led mayor who takes heed of our city’s pupil safeguarding scandal, notes the shocking New Statesman exposé of NHS Sussex on Monday 25 August and draws the obvious chilling parallel with local authority complicity in the monstrous harms wrought on children by grooming gangs.

Polling day is on Thursday 18 September, with polling stations due to be open from 7am to 10pm.

The polling stations are at