Ten years ago this month, the review that planned this network was published. In the time it then took Greater Cambridge to appoint the consultants who would design its routes, Copenhagen's equivalent partnership of councils built a finished cycle route connecting one of its towns to the capital. A decade on, Greater Cambridge has finished one route of twelve.

Finish the Greenways

Sources and method

Check everything

Nothing on this site depends on a claim you cannot verify. The source document is published here in full, and every status is drawn from material the Greater Cambridge Partnership has itself put in the public domain.

01

The 2016 review, in full

The Cambridge Area Greenways Review was commissioned by Cambridgeshire County Council and published in October 2016. It is the document every claim on this site is measured against, and it is reproduced here complete so that it can be read rather than taken on trust.

Cover of the Cambridge Area Greenways Review, October 2016

Cambridge Area Greenways Review (V5.1)

Sixty-six pages, based on fieldwork across twelve corridors in April, May and June 2016. Written by Nigel Brigham & Associates for Cambridgeshire County Council. The per-corridor appendices are published by the Greater Cambridge Partnership on its own asset library; the complete document is mirrored here.

It is a good piece of work. The corridors were well chosen, the standards it set were the right ones, and its warnings about land assembly and highway-land bias read now as accurate forecasts. Nothing on this site is a criticism of the plan. The argument is that it was not delivered.

Read the full review (PDF, 3.7 MB) GCP's own copy of an appendix
02

Where the money is

Greater Cambridge Partnership draft budget for 2026/27, £000. Horningsea's figure is residual — that route is finished. The programme total for the year is roughly £22.9m. GCP's own budget papers also publish an "agreed budget" figure per route — the whole-of-scheme committed total, not just next year's spend. Summing that column across all twelve routes gives a committed total of approximately £108m over the life of the programme — this is our own addition of GCP's published per-route figures, not a total GCP itself states; add programme management and early scoping spend and the all-in committed figure is closer to £115.6m. £22.9m is one year's slice of that, not the whole story. See what else that kind of money buys →

  • Bottisham 4164
  • Sawston 2878
  • Swaffham 2079
  • Linton 2147
  • Melbourn 2000
  • Barton 1956
  • Waterbeach 1800
  • Chisholm Trail 2 1565
  • Fulbourn 1345
  • Madingley Rd 1000
  • Haslingfield 760
  • St Ives 700
  • Comberton 400
  • Programme mgmt 201
  • Horningsea 68
03

Sources

Status information is drawn from Greater Cambridge Partnership scheme pages and monthly Greenways updates (most recent: August 2026), business cases and budget papers, consultation documents, the High Court judgment, and contemporaneous local reporting.

Programme and schemes

  1. GCP — Greater Cambridge Greenways programme
  2. GCP — Greenways update, August 2026
  3. GCP — Greenways update, July 2026
  4. GCP — Greenways update, March 2026
  5. GCP — Greenways update, December 2025
  6. GCP — Greenways update, November 2025
  7. GCP — Fulbourn Greenway Outline Business Case
  8. GCP — Draft budget 2026/27
  9. GCP — Partnership passes gateway review, June 2025
  10. GCP — Barton Greenway full business case approved, July 2025
  11. GCP — Riverside proposals, June 2026
  12. GCP — Chisholm Trail overview
  13. GCP — Cambridge South East Transport phase 2

Individual routes

  1. GCP — Waterbeach Greenway
  2. GCP — Horningsea Greenway
  3. GCP — Swaffham Greenway
  4. GCP — Bottisham Greenway
  5. GCP — Fulbourn Greenway
  6. GCP — Linton Greenway
  7. GCP — Sawston Greenway
  8. GCP — Melbourn Greenway
  9. GCP — Haslingfield Greenway
  10. GCP — Barton Greenway
  11. GCP — Comberton Greenway
  12. GCP — St Ives Greenway

Consultation, law and land

  1. R (Grantchester Parish Council) v Greater Cambridge Partnership [2025] EWHC 923 (Admin)
  2. The same judgment on BAILII
  3. Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government — Guidance on the compulsory purchase process
  4. Highways Act 1980, section 239 — acquisition of land for highway construction
  5. Highways Act 1980, section 26 — public path creation orders
  6. Cambridgeshire County Council's Huntingdon link road compulsory purchase order — inspector's report, 2011
  7. The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway Order 2005
  8. Lincolnshire County Council — freedom of information response on compulsory purchase for traffic-free paths
  9. Consult Cambridgeshire — Waterbeach Greenway 2023 FAQs
  10. Consult Cambridgeshire — Swaffhams and Bottisham FAQs
  11. Consult Cambridgeshire — Horningsea Greenway FAQs

Reporting and commentary

  1. Cambridge Independent — Grantchester loses High Court battle
  2. Cambridge Independent — Grantchester considers judicial review
  3. Cambridge Independent — Grantchester route approved
  4. Cambridge Independent — CSET funding discussions, July 2026
  5. Cambridge Independent — Comberton Greenway planning application
  6. Cambridge Independent — Three greenways approved, June 2020
  7. FTB Chambers — case analysis of the Grantchester judgment
  8. Camcycle — Creating the Greenways, 2021
  9. 5th Studio — greenways design work

Method, and what this site does not claim

Statuses reflect the most recent published information found as of September 2026. Schemes in design change frequently. "Not in current programme" means an item does not appear in the funded programme or any successor scheme identified in this research — not that it has been formally abandoned. Several could return if funding or land circumstances change, and this site would count that as a good outcome.

The consultation record here covers the formal rounds. Response numbers are published for some corridors and not others, so no total is claimed. The Lincolnshire freedom of information response is a single county's answer and is presented as indicative of a pattern, not as a national survey.

Corrections are welcome and will be made.