Walking Cities: Greater Manchester
Living Streets wants all Greater Manchester to be healthier, cleaner and less congested – by making walking safer, more pleasant and the easiest option for short journeys we can make change happen.
And with new proposals for improvements to the region's streets and infrastructure appearing regularly at the moment, this is a crucial time for us to feed in.
Greater Manchester Spatial Framework
Have your say
Greater Manchester Combined Authority has put together a broad plan for the whole region's infrastructure - and they are inviting you to have your say.
The Plan for Homes jobs and the Environment (or "spatial framework) will form the basis for the future development of communities across Greater Manchester, including homes, streets, transport and green spaces.
Living Streets believes it is important we support its aims to enable more walking - but also challenge the parts that could be better.
A consultation is now open until 18 March 2019.
Below are some ideas that you may wish to include in your response.
Welcome overall tenet of plan – and renewed focus on focusing development in existing city centres.
Important that focus on walkability is not lost within this. Higher densities should encourage walking and cycling but effort needs to be made to ensure the public realm is designed in such a way as to maximise the benefits.
Focus on ‘Streets for All’ is positive – although this philosophy should run through the whole strategy – and the role walking and cycling can play in boosting a sense of place and competitiveness should not be lost.
Looking to the future, people will be attracted to live and work in cities by attracting built environments and public realms, and clean air. The Mayor’s plans in this regard are to be welcomed but could go further in the future.
#walkingcities
Creating a buzz in the city
Hard to resist an invite to shape the future. 🔮 These super powers are being offered up to #greatermanchester folk to create ideas for a city centre transport strategy. Have your say. https://t.co/uMIlAXEVRb
— Living Streets (@livingstreets) October 12, 2018
Whether its the Beelines innovative plan to create a city-region-wide cycling and walking network made up of more than 1,000 miles of routes plus 1,400 safer road crossings, Transport for Greater Manchester are leading the way. They are asking for people of Manchester to have their say through various consultations running. The vision is to give priority to the movement of people and where more public spaces to sit, play and socialise will be created.
Living Streets Chief Executive, Joe Irvin says:
"We are excited to see this next stage in Chris Boardman’s ambitious plans to make Greater Manchester a great place for people."
We are delighted at the appointment of Chris Boardman as the city region's first-ever Cycling and Walking Commissioner.
It comes after hundreds of our supporters backed our campaign for the postholder to have a brief that included walking - so thank you to you, too!
Our research found that over a quarter of parents in Manchester (29%) think their city is unsafe for children walking to school.
After a generation of decline in the number of children walking to primary school (from 70% to 47%), the government has recognised the importance of walking to school and set a target – to get 55% walking to primary school by 2025.
In his manifesto, Andy Burnham also promised to introduce a new Clean Air Action Plan for Greater Manchester and put forward a plan to modernise our local train stations, making them more accessible.
Greater Manchester’s first-ever cycling and walking commissioner
These are our campaign aims in Greater Manchester
Our Walking Cities Campaign
Living Streets is calling on the new leaders in our major UK cities to make their cities healthier, cleaner and less congested.