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Remembering Dave Wetzel (1942-2024)
A champion of public transport and land value taxation, whose legacy lives on
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DAVE WETZEL had a profound impact on my school life, he got me and many other schoolkids on the Tube during Ken Livingstone’s Labour administration under the Greater London Council’s Fares Fair Initiative. And he later persuaded me of the advantages of land value taxation when l was serving at the London Assembly.
Dave Wetzel was born in 1942 and educated at Southall Technical College, Ealing College and the Henry George School of Social Sciences. After working as bus conductor and official in the 1960s, Wetzel became political organiser of the London Co-operative Society between 1974 and 1981.
He was the Labour Party councillor for Hammersmith North (1981-86) at the Greater London Authority and chair of the transport committee between 1981-86, and was transport chief under Livingstone involved in the Fares Fair initiative.
Designed to address the continuing flight from using public transport since the 1950s, the numbers soon leapt for the first time in a long while with this initiative, though it was challenged legally by Bromley Council.
He was also a member of Hounslow Borough Council (1964-94 and 1986-94), its leader from 1987-91 and chair of planning and deputy leader from 1986-87.
He was the first vice-chair for Transport for London (2000-08) and chair of London Buses 2000-01.
He was also the director of a transport charity, Dial-A-Ride and Taxicard users (DaRT) from 1989-94, which is now Transport for All, a pan-London disability rights organisation of disabled and older people.
President and founder of the Labour Land Campaign 1983-2015, he had been an advocate of land value taxation — a view inspired by his father and the Henry George School of Social Studies where he studied, which both campaigned for such a tax.
At Transport for London, it gained some traction and helped fund Crossrail and Northern line extension to Battersea.
He was director and president of the International Union for Land Value Taxation and Free Trade (2010-18), vice-chair of the Coalition for Economic Justice. 2021-24; and in 2014, he joined the Hounslow Green Party.
He leaves behind his dear wife Heather, daughters Emma and Chantel, granddaughters Moi Lanne, Bethany and Megan and grandson Pao.
Rest in peace Dave, your legacy lives on.
Should you want to make a donation in Dave’s memory, to an issue close to heart, please send it to the Labour Land Campaign (www.labourland.org).
Murad Qureshi is chair of the Labour Land Campaign.
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