Two Merton councillors drop out to pursue ambitions to become MPs

By Harrison Galliven, Local Democracy Reporter

Two Labour councillors are standing down ahead of their respective bids to win seats in the next Parliament.

Councillors Natasha Irons, of the Figges Marsh ward and Helena Dollimore, of the St Helier ward, announced their resignation on Merton council’s website yesterday.

Both councillors had made clear their intentions to stand as prospective parliamentary candidates ahead of the general election announcement last week.

Ms Irons, first elected to represent the Ravensbury ward in 2018, will stand as the Labour candidate in the newly-created Croydon East constituency.

Ms Irons, who has family from Croydon, has previously served as Merton’s cabinet member for local environment and green spaces. Following her 2022 election to the Figges Marsh ward, she took on the expanded role of cabinet member for local environment, green spaces and climate change.

Her selection for the Croydon East constituency came amid a Met investigation into the party’s stalled selection process. The investigation found some of the personal details of members in the constituency were altered on the Labour Party membership database without authorisation.

Council leader Ross Garrod acknowledged Ms Irons’s work in the borough on X. He said: “From helping breathe new life into Mitcham Town Centre, and working to ensure everyone in Figge’s Marsh has a safe, warm and secure place to call home, to investing in our much-loved parks, delivering 10,00 new trees in just one year. Natasha has a long list of achievements to be proud of.”

Ms Dollimore was first elected to the St Helier ward in 2021. During her first term, she was appointed to the Labour-run council’s healthier communities and older people overview and scrutiny panel.

She was re-elected to the same ward in 2022 and served on the licensing committee. Following her appointment in June 2022, Ms Dollimore failed to attend a single licensing sub-committee.

Her absence led some residents to express concerns that she was more interested in her ambition to become an MP in the Hastings and Rye constituency.

Furthermore, Ms Dollimore announced her MP candidacy almost a month after her 2022 re-election. This led to anger from residents who thought she intended to collect her yearly £8,694 allowance while focusing on her parliamentary candidacy instead of issues in the ward.

Philipa Maslin, Green Party parliamentary candidate for Mitcham and Morden, said: “I have lived in the St Helier ward since 2013 and am of the view that Helena Dollimore is one of a long line of Labour councillors whose complacency and lack of activity in the ward has been pronounced.“

Ms Maslin, who ran against Ms Dollimore in 2022, said: “As her posts on X demonstrate clearly, her focus has long been her ambition to become Hastings and Rye’s MP. I welcome her resignation and the forthcoming by-election.”

Pictured top: Helena Dollimore alongside Natasha Irons (centre left and right) doing work in their local ward (Picture: Helena Dollimore)