Dave Wetzel, who has died aged 81, was one of the leading lights of Ken Livingstone’s Greater London council during the early 1980s.
As chair of the GLC’s transport committee he was closely involved with the 1981 Fares Fair initiative, which cut tube and bus fares in the capital by around a third.
Much to Dave’s annoyance, the scheme was challenged in the courts by Conservative-controlled Bromley council and eventually declared illegal by the law lords, whom he memorably described as “vandals in ermine”.
Despite that setback, Dave went on to lead the introduction of the London-wide Travelcard, which cut tube, rail and bus costs for travellers by a similar percentage and which has remained a popular feature of London travel to this day.
Born in Isleworth, west London, to Fred and his wife, Ivy (nee Donaldson), Dave was educated at Isleworth grammar school, after which he became a bus conductor before moving on to be a driver and then a garage manager. In 1974 he changed direction to become a political organiser at the London Co-operative Society until 1981.
Having been a trade union representative on the buses, Dave had also set off on a political career as a Labour councillor at the London borough of Hounslow in 1964. He also went on to represent Hammersmith North for Labour at the GLC from 1981 onwards, chairing its transport committee until the GLC’s abolition in 1986. We were both very involved in west London politics, which is how we met.
Associated with the left of the Labour party, Dave was Hounslow council leader from 1987 to 1991, and found himself in charge of a more mainstream Labour authority.
It said a lot for his political expertise and personality that he successfully built bridges with his more rightwing colleagues, including myself, encouraging and involving old opponents to donate their experience alongside newer talent. He initiated improvements in areas such as equal opportunities, environmental protection and recycling, and led the establishment of local community councils with control over their own budgets.
Dave’s experience in transport led him to become a director, from 1989 to 1994, of the charity Dial-A-Ride, a pan-London body now known as Transport for All. He was also a vice-chair of Transport for London (2000-08) and chair of London Buses (2000-01).
An advocate of land value taxation, he was founder in 1983 of the Labour Land Campaign, of which he was also president until 2015.
Dave stepped down as a Hounslow councillor in 1994 and 10 years later, disillusioned with the Labour party, switched his allegiance to the Green party. Work wise, after a period of unemployment he became a minicab driver and later a shopkeeper before retiring.
He is survived by his wife, Heather (nee Allman), a fellow Hounslow councillor whom he married in 1973, their daughters Emma and Chantel, and four grandchildren, Moi Lanne, Bethany, Megan and Pao.
