Meet your Bognor Regis & Littlehampton general election candidates

In the last general election, Conservative Nick Gibb was elected with a majority of 22,503. Mr Gibb had served as the MP for the constituency since 1997 and is not standing for re-election. A boundary review, completed last year, saw Rustington east and west to be added to the constituency.

Here is what the candidates and parties had to say…

Alison Griffiths (Conservatives): Alison Griffiths has deep roots in this area, having grown up in Surrey and Sussex before going on to study at the University of Warwick. It was there that Alison’s life took a dramatically different turn. In her first year at university, Alison contracted bacterial meningitis. In a coma for a week, she lost 70 per cent of her hearing, permanently. Like you, she knows the value of the NHS – the doctors and nurses there saved her life. Alison knows she was lucky, and through adversity she came through the other side to focus on how she can make a difference to the world. She became a trustee of the national charity Meningitis Now and remains an ambassador for them. In her business career, she worked in senior roles for global businesses including pensions provider Aviva and Coca-Cola, before leading growth for early-stage technology and cybersecurity companies, and advising government. Her experience in business has taught her how to create jobs and prosperity and given her the tenacity to succeed. As your MP, Alison will be as determined and tenacious as she has been throughout her life. She will stand up for Bognor Regis & Littlehampton on sewage discharges, on inappropriate development, and fight for vital community infrastructure. She will support increased state pensions tax thresholds and do everything she can to ensure our residents can access the NHS services they need. She wants to make sure the NHS is there for you, just as it was for her. And she will use her business experience to champion jobs, skills, growth and tourism to boost our high streets.

Clare Walsh (Labour): I am honoured to be standing as your Labour candidate in the general election. If I elected I will work for a changed future where every member of our community has access to quality healthcare, a clean environment, and well supported local businesses. I work regularly with policymakers and MPs across the south coast and Westminster to bring about change. Through my background I have a strong understanding of economic policy and I have advised government on kinship care and on changes to the family courts. I have always contributed to my local community, as a volunteer legal advisor, and investigator on the Hillsborough inquests, and helping local families with housing and cost of living problems. I promise to listen to residents’ concerns and to work non-stop to earn their vote and trust. Together, we can build a better future for Bognor Regis & Littlehampton.

Henry Jones (Liberal Democrats): I have lived within the constituency, in my home village of Yapton, my whole life. I went to the local schools, and I run my own small business locally, too. Our towns and villages have been neglected for decades by governments that don’t bother to consider us. Our previous MP was elected by such a large margin that this was considered a very ‘safe’ seat. We have a great opportunity to change that this July! As a Liberal Democrat, I believe that local people, close to the issues, are the ones best placed to solve them. We should be moving more power into the hands of local people, so that issues like regeneration and development are led by people who will actually be impacted by it. We need to incentivise businesses back into our high streets and support new ideas like banking hubs to ensure vital face-to-face services are retained. We should stop allowing private developers to pave over grade-one farmland and instead help local authorities to build proper affordable housing, and for local people. I want to see Southern Water held to account by a new regulator, without bailing them out using public money. I want to see taxes on digital giants like Facebook toughened up and loopholes closed, so that huge corporations pay their share. I want to see pensions protected and WASPIs compensated, not stealth-taxed by the personal allowance. Liberal Democrats are the party of local representation, and I will be a part of that. I will make sure that my constituency office is in the heart of the towns and accessible to anyone, weeklong. Whether or not our next MP is part of the government, they should always be there for the people.

Sandra Daniells (Reform UK): I would like to introduce myself as your Bognor Regis & Littlehampton parliamentary candidate for Reform UK. I joined Reform because the Conservative Party simply no longer felt the right for me politically. I had always supported them as the party of low taxes, freedom for citizens, respect for freedom of speech, and pride in our nation. Unfortunately, over the past months and years they have lost my trust, the economy is suffering, we are guarded when expressing our opinions about illegal immigration, net zero, border control, and the sovereignty of our nation. I felt that they were no longer listening to the vast majority of us, who are feeling angry on a daily basis about so many issues and about the way the country is being managed. Labour will take us down a similar path. I joined Reform because their policies reflect my way of thinking and they offer a home for those who were Conservative voters, on the Right of the political spectrum, but who no longer feel they can vote for them. I am an ex-nurse, a former elected councillor and have a business in Bognor Regis. I’ve lived in the constituency for 40 years , and so I understand the local concerns, and those of our small businesses, as well as those issues affecting us nationally. I realise that many people will be reluctant to vote for a new party, and may think it will be a wasted vote but if, like me, you believe Reform’s policies offer a genuine alternative for our country, please cast your vote in my favour. Even if you do not normally vote, there has never been a more important time to do so. I hope that I can count on your support on July 4.

Carol Birch (Green Party): I have lived and worked around Bognor Regis for almost 25 years with my husband and two daughters. My girls are now grown up and still live here so I am very committed to the constituency. I have a keen interest in wildlife and the need to look after our world. In my early career I worked in horticulture before studying law. I started volunteering at Citizens Advice which led to a career in advice work and I am keen to reverse the devastating impact the last 14 years have had on our area. In May, 2023, I was elected as an Arun district councillor where I now chair the housing and wellbeing committee. My key priorities would be: nationalising the water companies – the only way to ensure the money we pay for bills is kept in the UK and used for its intended purpose; rebuilding the NHS and protecting it from the creeping privatisation that both the Tories and Labour are proposing – developing a proper social-care system is an essential strategy for taking the pressure off hospitals; stopping the use of flood plains for building and adequately funding the Environment Agency to develop better approaches to flood defences; building social housing, including using brownfield sites as a priority for building sites – creating higher environment standards in housebuilding and supporting a transition to a green local economy and regenerative agricultureImproving how our democracy works through more use of Citizens Assemblies and introducing Proportional representation; tax wealth and ensure money is spent honestly and wisely and address climate change and restore biodiversity. If elected, I will work hard for us in Bognor Regis & Littlehampton as your local candidate.

David Kurten (Heritage Party): I was born in Rustington and grew up in Barnham and I am delighted to be standing for the Heritage Party in Bognor Regis & Littlehampton in the general election this year. Our nation desperately needs a change from the political parties that have been mismanaging our nation for the last several decades. The Heritage Party wants to give people a choice: we can either stick with globalist parties that are ruining our nation with mass immigration, record national debt, ‘net-zero’ policies that are making energy and food more expensive and who are now accelerating us towards a dangerous hot war in eastern Europe, or we can return to common-sense and restore our nation. The Heritage Party stands for simple common-sense policies and principles that will restore purpose and prosperity to our country if we choose them. Protect our culture and heritage, free speech and liberty, traditional family values, stop gender ideology and sexualisation of children in schools, national sovereignty, control our borders and end mass immigration, stop rampant development and protect our countryside, financial responsibility, self-sufficiency in skills, self-sufficiency in energy, no net-zero and keep our cars, support our farmers, no more lockdowns or coerced ‘vaccinations’, disentangle from foreign wars, pro life. I am the founder and leader of the Heritage Party and you can find out more about us and read our manifesto at heritageparty.org