Voting in the Queen's Park by-election runs from 7am to 10pm on Thursday 24 September. Four polling stations, five candidates, photo ID required, count on Friday.
Result, 25 September 2026: Mark Strong (Green Party) won the by-election with 1,139 votes to Labour’s 802, on a 33.36% turnout. Full result and analysis.
Polling stations in the Queen’s Park ward of Brighton are open from 7am to 10pm today, Thursday 24 September, for the by-election to fill the ward’s vacant council seat. Five candidates are standing. You need photo identification to vote in person, and the ballot papers are counted tomorrow, Friday 25 September.
The statement of persons nominated and notice of poll was published by the returning officer, Jess Gibbons, on 27 August.
The seat fell vacant when Councillor Milla Gauge resigned. The council issued its notice of vacancy on 11 August.
Who is standing
In the order they appear on the ballot paper, with the descriptions they gave on their nomination papers:
| Candidate | Description |
|---|---|
| Rudi Dikty-Daudiyan | Liberal Democrats |
| Steve Gladwin | Labour Party |
| John Shepherd | Reform UK |
| Stefan Sönke Speckesser | Conservative and Unionist Party |
| Mark Strong | Green Party |
All five give an address in Brighton & Hove.
Today, in order
Polls open from 7am to 10pm on Thursday 24 September. Ballot papers are counted the following day, Friday 25 September.
- Bring photo ID. You cannot vote in person without an accepted form of it. You can vote without your poll card.
- The registration, postal vote and proxy deadlines have all passed. They ran from 8 September to 18 September, and are set out on the council’s by-election page.
- There is one exception. An emergency proxy can still be arranged. In England, Scotland and Wales “you have until 5pm on the day of the election to apply”, and the qualifying reasons include a medical emergency or disability, your employment, or photo ID that has been lost, stolen, damaged or destroyed, or a replacement that has not arrived (GOV.UK).
To vote you had to be registered in Queen’s Park ward by 8 September, or be a registered Crown servant or service elector for an address in the ward, and you must be 18 or over today.
Photo ID
You need photo identification to vote in person. The council lists what counts on its voter ID page. The free Voter Authority Certificate is the fallback for anyone without accepted ID, but the deadline to apply for one for this poll passed at 5pm on 16 September.
If your ID has been lost, stolen, damaged or destroyed, that is one of the grounds for an emergency proxy, up to 5pm today.
The four polling stations
The notice of poll lists four stations for the ward:
| Station | Where |
|---|---|
| 1 | The Vale Community Centre, 17A Hadlow Close, Brighton |
| 2 | St Luke’s Church, Queen’s Park Road, Brighton |
| 3 | Barnard Community Centre, St John’s Mount, Mount Pleasant |
| 4 | Millwood Community Centre, Nelson Row, Carlton Hill |
Your poll card tells you which one is yours. You can vote without the card, but not without ID.
What it means for you
One seat is being filled, and it will not change who runs the city. The council’s own register of members currently shows 53 sitting councillors: Labour 31, Green 11, Conservative 5, four independents and two from Brighton & Hove Independents. Labour has an outright majority whatever happens today.
What tomorrow’s result does decide is who represents Queen’s Park alongside Councillor Marina Lademacher, and who carries ward casework on the things residents actually contact councillors about: parking, planning, housing and rubbish.
Registration for this poll closed on 8 September. If you have moved house since then, or you turn 18 after today, registering to vote now puts you on the roll for the next election rather than this one.
While you are checking council business, our local information pages cover bin collection days, council tax bands and parking in Brighton.
Updated 24 September 2026: rewritten for polling day. The registration, postal vote and proxy deadlines listed in the original version of this article have now passed.
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