Manchester’s Climate Adaptation Plan: Co-developing actionable pathways to build resilience

The city of Manchester is increasingly impacted by extreme weather events, from longer heatwaves to more frequent flooding. Here, Zak Baillie, Hannah Chambers and Francis Heil from the Sustainable Futures team talk about the work they did to develop the city's climate adaptation plan to help meet those challenges.

The flooding on New Years Day 2025 highlighted Manchester’s vulnerabilities to extreme weather events which are projected to become more frequent in the future. The changes in Manchester are also indicative of the changes we are seeing across the UK: the summer of 2025 was the UK’s warmest on record.

Manchester, like much of the UK, needs a holistic and action-oriented plan to help build its resilience to these events. AtkinsRéalis was commissioned by Manchester Climate Ready - the body responsible for setting Manchester's climate strategy - to co-develop a plan that would help the city become more resilient to climate-related impacts.

The Manchester Climate Ready Report front cover

Investments in measures to build climate resilience are becoming a pressing priority for government and non-government organisations alike, as the effects of climate change challenge our normal ways of operating.

Recent advice from the UK’s Climate Change Committee is unequivocal on this matter. At a minimum, the UK must be prepared for a world 2°C warmer than pre-industrial times, and 4°C of warming cannot be discounted. Temperatures in 2024 were already 1.5°C warmer than pre-industrial times which shows how ill-prepared we are for a world that is expected to become warmer yet.

These large-scale changes underscore the need for locally driven action to build resilience. The Manchester Adaptation Plan – released on 13 November – is a clear example of this.

Working in partnership

We brought a range of stakeholders from Manchester and across the UK together to engage in the process to ensure the plan was locally relevant and actionable, and that it was co-developed with those who will help implement it.

Representatives from more than 20 organisations were involved in developing the plan, including Manchester City Council, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, United Utilities, Electricity North West, Transport for Greater Manchester, NHS, Manchester universities, The Wildlife Trusts, and many others.

It was important to ensure that this was a stakeholder-led exercise. As AtkinsRéalis, we aimed to combine our climate resilience expertise with the knowledge and experience of stakeholders who have lived experience of preparing and responding to climate and weather extremes in the city.

Two workshops took place across February and March 2025, attended by stakeholders from across Manchester and the UK. The first workshop was used to develop a list of actions to help address Manchester’s key climate vulnerabilities. The second workshop refined this initial list after review and consolidation by the AtkinsRéalis team, and confirmed who within Manchester might lead the delivery of an action, and who could support.

In delivering these workshops we drew on our experience of developing similar plans for other cities and local authorities across the UK and globally, which includes advising the London Climate Resilience Review and developing Transport Scotland’s Trunk Road Adaptation Plan. This ensured that the plan reflected leading practice globally, while also accounting for Manchester’s unique pressures and strengths.

A coherent multi-sectoral approach is required to comprehensively build resilience. Because of this, the plan contains actions for all sectors, which will need to be led by organisations from across government, utilities, and the private and community sector. Actions have been organised into four broad and overlapping categories:

• Adaptation Governance - actions that coordinate decision-making across the city and region.
• People and Communities - actions that build the resilience of Manchester’s people and communities, including specific focus on health and wellbeing
• Built Environment and Infrastructure - actions that improve the resilience of Manchester’s built environment and interconnected infrastructure
• A Climate- Resilient Economy - actions that build the resilience of Manchester’s economy to climate shocks and stresses, and position Manchester to realise economic opportunities

While the plan is focused on delivering a Manchester that is resilient to the floods and heatwaves of tomorrow, there are numerous co-benefits associated with its successful implementation. Together it will help build a city that is healthier, fairer and more liveable.

Download the Manchester Climate Ready Plan