Lucy Abram, Deputy Director of the Cheshire, Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside Team
CyanLines is a bold plan to link and transform Greater Manchester’s green and blue spaces - and it's just celebrated its first birthday. This blog explores how Greater Manchester is putting nature at the heart of its future growth and development, and celebrates the first year of CyanLines, an ambitious programme connecting people with nature across the city region. It explains the ways in which the city regards nature as essential infrastructure, delivering benefits that range from cleaner air and reduced flood risk to improved health, wellbeing and economic prosperity.
Greater Manchester has long been a leader in reconnecting people with nature. Nature is not a nice-to-have or an afterthought. It is essential infrastructure.
Natural England has been working across Greater Manchester for many years, building strong partnerships with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, local authorities and environmental NGOs. Together, we are shaping strategic plans and delivering projects that create lasting benefits for communities, nature and the local economy.
Nature cleans our air and water, reduces flood risk, stores carbon, cools our urban environments, supports food production and strengthens the economy. And importantly, access to green space improves physical and mental wellbeing, with green spaces estimated to save the NHS £2.1 billion every year by helping people live healthier lives.
Ensuring these spaces are accessible, with routes starting on people's doorsteps, is more important than ever.
As the first area in the North of England to publish the Local Nature Recovery Strategy, Greater Manchester is leading the way in working across a range of partnerships to integrate nature into the fabric of the city region. This vision goes hand-in-hand with ambitious plans for housing, world-class employment spaces, and hubs for innovation, science and technology, demonstrating that growth and nature are not competing priorities.
The development of CyanLines is a powerful example of this ambition. By creating a connected network of nature-rich spaces linked by walking routes, canals and rivers, the project will make it easier than ever for people to experience and enjoy nature across the city.
It's ambitious. It's transformative. And if there's one thing Manchester has never been afraid of, it is thinking big.
Celebrating One Year of CyanLines
In September 2025, more than 600 people descended upon Aviva Studios in central Manchester to hear of a new ambitious programme that was set to transform the green and blue routes across Greater Manchester. 12-months on, crowds returned to the creative hub on the banks of the River Irwell to hear first-hand of the progress made.
Born from the minds of Tom Bloxham CBE MBE (Chair and Founder of Urban Splash) and Pete Swift (Founding Director and CEO of Planit) – and backed by the former leader of Manchester City Council and recently elected Mayor of Greater Manchester, Bev Craig, and our new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham – CyanLines is a bold initiative to create a 100-mile network of green spaces and waterways across the city region, connecting local people with the nature-rich landscape that makes Greater Manchester so unique.
Mayor of Greater Manchester and co-chair of CyanLines Bev Craig said:
“We’re on a mission to connect our green spaces with nature across Greater Manchester.
“The ambition of CyanLines to join up our green spaces, rivers and canals is a key part of our vision to create a greener, healthier and better-connected city region. It shows what we can achieve when communities, businesses and the public and voluntary sectors come together with a shared purpose.”
It is part of one of the first projects to be part funded by the Nature Towns and Cities initiative, a transformative coalition of organisations bringing nature, green infrastructure and natural heritage into communities. Salford & Manchester are one area where nearly £1 million has been awarded to create thriving nature corridors and parks to connect existing open spaces and waterways into a cohesive network.
One of the core components of CyanLines is a commitment to be led by the evidence. The CyanLabs programme pulls together key organisations – such as Natural England and academics from Greater Manchester’s Universities – to design where the next tranche of CyanLines should go, to improve nature’s recovery whilst creating more green corridors in areas of most need for the greatest health benefits.
This week, the CyanLines coalition reconnected for the 2026 annual stakeholder event, using the one-year anniversary as a moment to celebrate the development of the four initial routes across the urban centre of Manchester and Salford. A warm reception was received from both private and public partners, celebrating this next phase and revealing two major announcements: firstly, a significant charitable grant from the Bupa Foundation to the National Trust towards Phase Two of Castlefield Viaduct. Secondly, plans for a new CyanLines route, CL5, which will significantly improve the experience of walking and wheeling to the Etihad Stadium and Co-op Live Arena from the City Centre through a series practical and nature led interventions.
As ever, it was striking to see the breadth of representation in the room; from developers who are reshaping areas of Greater Manchester to policy professionals, everyone has united under the CyanLines plan to help deliver for nature and people.
It was also a pleasure to welcome our Chair of Natural England, Tony Juniper, to Manchester, as he spoke at the annual event and ventured on a walk along CL4 earlier that day.
Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England, said:
“This is a great example of the kind of silo-busting partnership working needed to deliver real results in actual places where people live and work. At Natural England we look forward to further collaboration, maximising benefits for wildlife as part of this inspiring people-focused vision."
Natural England are excited to continue working with CyanLines and partners on this exciting journey, and we can’t wait to see what we achieve together by the second anniversary.
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