INSIDE SUTTON: Another absentee LibDem councillor has quit, running up costs of an estimated £25,000 for Council Tax-payers
Council by-elections in Sutton are getting to be a bit like buses: no sooner has one come along, than another is announced.
Absent: LibDem Amy Haldane
Just after noon today, Sutton’s senior legal official, Tim Martin, emailed the borough’s councillors to advise that another absentee LibDem councillor, Amy Haldane, had handed in her resignation.
The resignation of “Absent Amy” had come just a matter of hours after her party colleague, Choi Ka Yuen, was named as the winner of yesterday’s Sutton Central by-election.
That by-election was called because another LibDem councillor, former deputy leader David Bartolucci had been disqualified for missing all council meetings for more than six months.
Council insiders are speculating that Haldane was given permission to stand down as a councillor for Carshalton South and Clockhouse ward by the council leader, Barry “Basher” Lewis, but only once he was assured that the LibDems’ seat in Sutton Central had been safely retained.
Haldane, 36, a councillor since 2014, had a baby in November. Council colleagues told Inside Sutton today, “I haven’t seen her since about September.” It is also suggested, though unconfirmed, that Haldane no longer lives in the borough. Haldane had not responded to Inside Sutton’s invitation to comment by the time of publication.
“She couldn’t be described as the hardest working of councillors,” one now former council colleague said of Haldane, describing her as “highly-opinionated” and “liable to make bizarre decisions”. Despite having been on the council for more than a decade, Haldane had never been promoted up the ranks of local LibDems.
According to the council’s official records, “Absent Amy” has not attended a meeting of full council since May last year, although for some of this period she did have dispensation due to maternity leave. Her records show Haldane has only attended 41% of council meetings she was expected to attend since January 2024.
Council by-elections are estimated to cost the tax-payers of Sutton around £25,000 a time – with a hefty slice of the cost going to the returning officer, “Hapless Helen” Bailey, the council CEO.
In his email to councillors today, Martin said: “I am writing to you on behalf of the chief executive, who is on leave, to advise you that the resignation of Councillor Amy Haldane has been received this morning.
“I understand that the requisite notice has been given by two electors and a by-election will be held for the vacant seat in Carshalton South and Clockhouse on Thursday 22nd May 2025.”
Carshalton South and Clockhouse is within LibDem MP Bobby Dean’s Carshalton and Wallington constituency, but is unusual in that the southern part of the ward, in Clockhouse and Coulsdon, is largely cut off from the rest of Sutton by farmland and golf courses, with its public transport feeding into Croydon.
Carshalton South and Clockhouse is also unusual in being a split ward: LibDem Haldane’s ward colleagues are the Conservatives Moira Butt and Tim Crowley, the former leader of the opposition on the council. Haldane is said to have been personally popular with residents, which accounted for her topping the poll ahead of her Tory rivals at the 2018 local elections, though by 2022 she was only third.
Opposition councillors in Sutton are livid at what they see as the cynical manipulation of the by-election system by Sutton’s ruling LibDems, and the costs incurred by residents as a result.
“They must think they have it in the bag,” one said as they prepared for another six weeks of leafleting and door-knocking around the suburban streets of Sutton.
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