The audit
The ambition that was lost
The network was designed to cross the rivers, railways and trunk roads that divide this county. Those crossings are what got cut. Here is every one of the 97 interventions the 2016 review proposed, and what happened to it.
The crossings
Fourteen bridges and underpasses were proposed. Not one has been built. These are the items that decide whether a greenway is a network or a set of village improvements — you cannot negotiate your way across a river.
Three became crossings at road level. Two are still on paper. The rest are gone.
The A1307 at Hildersham, Ditton Lane and Long Road were all resolved at the surface instead of grade-separated. The Tins Path railway bridge and the Bin Brook bridge survive in live schemes but remain unbuilt. One existing structure — the Canteloupe Farm accommodation bridge over the M11, which the 2016 review thought unobtainable — was brought into use by agreement.| Greenway | Proposed structure | Scale | Status | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Waterbeach | New River Cam bridge north of Baits Bite Lock, linking to Horningsea | new bridge | Not in current programme | Never entered the funded programme. GCP states funding is limited to the twelve set routes. |
| Horningsea | New River Cam bridge north of Baits Bite Lock, linking to Milton | new bridge | Not in current programme | Not included. GCP's FAQ acknowledges 'further opportunities' it cannot fund. |
| Bottisham | Grade-separated crossing of Ditton Lane | underpass | Delivered differently | An underpass was considered and abandoned — utilities, flood risk and land cost made it 'poor value for money'. Replaced by improved signalised surface crossings. |
| Fulbourn | New bridge over the railway on the Tins Path | new bridge | In design or planning | Kept: the outline business case identifies the Tins Path railway crossing as a critical bottleneck and includes its upgrade. Still unbuilt. A new alignment for phase 3 was approved on 19 March 2024. |
| Fulbourn | New railway crossing plus paths along the rail corridor towards Chisholm Trail, Cambridge North and the Science Park | new bridge + route | Not in current programme | The long-term rail-corridor vision — the review's most transformative Fulbourn idea — is not in the adopted scheme. |
| Linton | New route crossing under the A11 beside the River Granta | underpass | Delivered differently | The preferred 2016 option was dropped. CSET phase 2 instead proposes improving the existing A11 footbridge with new ramps. |
| Linton | New bridge over the A1307 near Hildersham | new bridge | Delivered differently | Replaced by an at-grade signalised crossing, which has been built. The bridge is not in the programme. |
| Sawston | Links across the A505 to Duxford, Hinxton and the Wellcome Sanger Institute, including a possible A505 bridge or underpass at Whittlesford Parkway | bridge/underpass | Not in current programme | Never progressed beyond the review's 'look further at opportunities'. |
| Melbourn | New bridge over the A505 into Royston | ~80 m span | Not in current programme | Advanced to Joint Assembly and Board discussion in 2023 and appeared on a Hertfordshire £37m active-travel wishlist, but has no funding and is not in the GCP programme. |
| Haslingfield | New path and bridge over the River Cam through the former Hauxton Treatment Works site | ~30 m span | Not in current programme | Not in the adopted route. |
| Haslingfield | Use the Canteloupe Farm accommodation bridge over the M11 | existing bridge | In design or planning | The 2016 report judged agreement 'unlikely'. It was secured: the adopted route runs past Canteloupe Farm and the M11 bridge is to be made step-free. |
| Barton | Upgrade the Granta Place to Fen Causeway route, including two new bridges | 2 bridges | Not in current programme | Not in the current programme. |
| Comberton | Replace the Bin Brook bridge on Burrell's Walk with a wider one | new bridge | In design or planning | Still in the scheme, unbuilt. |
| Comberton | Safe crossing of Long Road between Coton and Comberton — assumed to be a new underpass | underpass | Delivered differently | The 2016 report assumed a grade-separated crossing, noting a concrete box could be installed quickly. The scheme now proposes a surface parallel crossing. |
| St Ives | New route linking Swavesey and Over, with a new bridge of 20m-plus span | 20 m + 1.6 km | Paused on cost | Consulted in 2023, then suspended on rising construction costs following a Board decision in September. |
| St Ives | New bridges to Holywell and Needingworth — one of 40m-plus span over the Great Ouse, one of 10m-plus, and 1.2km of new path | 40 m + 10 m | Not in current programme | Not in the programme. |
Beyond the twelve
The Chisholm Trail isn't one of the twelve Greenways — it's the cross-city spine that was meant to connect several of them to the station and Cambridge North. Campaigner Jim Chisholm first proposed it in 1998, nearly two decades before the Greenways review. It shows the same pattern outside the programme this audit otherwise tracks.
Phase 1 opened in December 2021, its budget having risen from £14m to £21m during delivery. Phase 2 — the section that actually closes the loop to Cambridge North — was projected in a March 2019 board paper to open with the rest of the trail by 2022. In October 2024, five years after that projection and three years after phase 1 opened, the Executive Board recorded only an "in principle" agreement with Network Rail for one sub-section. As of September 2026, no construction date has been set, and phase 2 does not appear in any of the programme's monthly public updates.
Sources: Cambridge Cycling Campaign — Newsletter 17, 1998, Jim Chisholm's original proposal · GCP — Chisholm Trail phase 2 · GCP — Board decisions on Chisholm Trail phase two, October 2024 · Board paper, March 2019 (PDF)The full audit
All 97 proposals, including upgrades and gap-filling paths. Filter by route, by the kind of work, or by what became of it. Roughly 35 of these are brand-new routes on corridors that had no cycle provision at all — around 40 km in total, almost all of it needing land outside the highway boundary.
| Greenway | Proposed intervention (2016) | Type | Scale | Status 2026 | What happened |
|---|