Liverpool Green Lanes: Connecting Communities 

After introducing Liverpool Green Lanes at Healthy City Design 2023, Ryder shares developments at this year’s congress.

In a panel discussion hosted by Ryder partner Paul Bell, we presented insights and developments of Liverpool Green Lanes at Healthy City Design 2024 international congress.  

Panellists include Allison McGuiness, Liverpool ONE; Roberto Villegas-Diaz, GroundsWell, University of Liverpool; Kevin Fenning, Evidence First; Jeremy Salmon, Okana; and Cathy Russell, urban design director at Ryder.  

 

Liverpool Green Lanes is both a provocation and a proposition to catalyse, connect, green and grow Liverpool, addressing health and economic inequality, improving connectivity and engaging the city’s communities. The proposal defines how critical paths across cities, areas of need, interest and potential could be connected. These critical paths have the potential to amplify and accelerate Liverpool’s positive transformation, providing communities with access to a greener, healthier, more liveable and better connected urban environment.  

As a centrepiece and award winner for the most innovative idea at last year’s congress, the interactive installation generated significant interest and feedback. 

This year’s panel of collaborators demonstrated how continued development responds to the objectives of the World Health Organization’s emerging strategic guide for urban health.  

Key areas of discussion included: 

  • The branches are more important than the trunk.  Is Green Lanes a forest, rather than a single tree? 
  • Start by starting – funding for small catalyst projects, anywhere within the Green Lanes network – evaluate and celebrate the benefits, demonstrate how these could be joined up and amplified  
  • “Where data and stories meet” – the importance of listening to local people to enrich the data mapping we’ve collated  
  • Green Lanes is about the internal spaces and programming, as well as the external public realm 
  • How does Green Lanes deal with the threat of gentrification evidenced by the links between property prices and distances to green spaces? Is there a risk of displacing the existing community? How can we ensure that existing health inequalities are not exacerbated? 
  • Consider blue space as well as green.  Consider ways to encourage people to access the city centre and waterfront improved green spaces – what will attract people to spend time there (but not necessarily money)? 
  • Estimate costs for a package of Green Lanes works to enable socio-economic and health benefits to be estimated and funding opportunities considered 

Liverpool Green Lanes was also highly commended at the awards ceremony. 

Read more about Liverpool Green Lanes and view the Healthy City Design presentation here. 

The Liverpool Green Lanes journey so far.

Over the past year we have held a programme of workshops and engagements with a range of stakeholders to ensure that considerations, challenges and opportunities are addressed.   

We are keen to continue the discussions and invite others to join the conversation. Please contact us if you have ideas, questions, or if you’d like to participate in Green Lanes.  Please provide feedback here or contact our team.