My partner, John Taylor, who has died from cancer aged 74, was a leading figure in the field of community, rural and accessible transport. He made practical improvements in the lives of many people affected by privatisation, poor planning and reduced public funding of transport services.
While volunteering in Manchester in the 1970s John found minimal resources available for those who needed help to access his community buses – makeshift steps and ramps of milk crates and wooden planks were the norm. Plugging this gap became the foundation of his work.
He co-founded Manchester Community Transport (MCT) and in 1984 was founding director of Community Transport Services, later Community Transport Association UK (CTA), the national advisory body for transport-related charities. In the 90s he was instrumental in devising MiDAS (the Minibus Driver Awareness Scheme). In 1994 MiDAS was adopted nationally as a training scheme for volunteer minibus drivers; 30 years later, CTA UK issued its one millionth driver assessment certificate.
Born in Cambridge, John was the youngest of three children of Reginald Taylor, a civil servant, and his wife, Winifred (nee Stamford). The family moved to south London when John was a few weeks old. He was a gifted student at Whitgift school, Croydon, where his love of a challenge and wide open spaces led him to embrace mountaineering and climbing. He subsequently climbed in the UK, the Alps, Pyrenees and Himalayas; his final “big” expedition was an ascent of Ama Dablam, in Nepal, in 2007.
In 1971 he went to New College, Oxford, to study philosophy, politics and economics, followed by a year as an articled clerk in London, with the intention of pursuing a legal career. He then moved to Manchester to do postgraduate study in the sociology of law at Manchester University and stayed in the north for the rest of his life. Voluntary jobs led him into the transport sector, first with MCT and later as a freelance transport consultant, which is when I first met him, working together in Levenshulme.
We moved to Lancaster in 1995, and around this time John became co-director of the TAS (Transport Advisory Service) Partnership. He would often take on far too much and his reports were invariably delivered at the last minute. But once finished, he loved to communicate his ideas; his colourful shirt and tie combos gave him a standout presence during presentations.
Outside work, he enjoyed his vast music collection, which covered classical, jazz, blues and his beloved Grateful Dead. When the children expressed interest in Meccano, he drove to Hampshire to collect a huge quantity bought on eBay.
A loyal fan of Morecambe FC, he was active in the Shrimps Trust supporters’ society, leading the post-match litter-picking team and helping them acquire MiDAS certification for their away travel.
He is survived by me, our sons, Robin and Jonathan, his stepson, Ashley, and his sister, Fran, and brother, Francis.
