Hackney Conservatives announce candidate for Victoria ward by-election

Conservative candidate Christopher Sills. Photograph: Hackney Conservatives

Hackney Conservatives have revealed their candidate for the upcoming by-election in Victoria ward – where Labour’s Alex Kuye stepped down earlier this month due to illness.

Former councillor Christopher Sills has thrown his name into the hat ahead of voting on 18 October.

The party’s chief whip Cllr Simche Steinberger said: “Christopher has experience. He was a councillor for many years, and remembers when the borough was run by the Conservatives.

“He knows what’s needed and I have no doubt that he is the right man for the job.”

Sills moved to Hackney aged just 18 nearly 50 years ago, which would have been shortly after the last time the Conservatives won control of the council in 1964.

He has lived in Stamford Hill with his family since 1990.

Sills is currently deputy chairman of the Hackney Conservative Federation, and ran for a seat in Woodberry Down in May’s local elections, finishing in seventh place.

The Victoria ward by-election was triggered when Labour councillor Alex Kuye vacated his seat earlier this month, with his party agreeing that “he would find it impossible to manage his role effectively as a councillor and cope with illness”.

Key dates for the 18 October by-election are:

Deadline to register to vote – midnight on 2 October 2018

New postal vote application deadline – 5pm on 3 October 2018

New proxy vote application deadline – 5pm on 10 October 2018

For more information, get in touch with Electoral Services at electoralservices@hackney.gov.uk or on 020 8356 3232