The worker bee is Manchester’s civic symbol, the proud emblem of a city of industry.

But the name Beelines cannot be used for Greater Manchester’s nascent £500m walking and cycling network after a copyright tussle with a company based in London.

Last June, Chris Boardman, the Olympic cyclist who is Greater Manchester’s walking and cycling commissioner, announced Beelines: 75 miles of Dutch-style segregated cycle lanes and safe pedestrian crossings, the largest such network in the UK.

But within weeks he received a complaint from a company that makes navigational compasses for bikes and motorbikes, as well as a route-finding app, all branded Beeline.

While reporting on his final Tour de France last summer, Boardman tried and failed to resolve the tussle with London-based Relish Technologies, which launched Beeline via a crowdfunder in 2015. Boardman himself had invested in the firm via the Kickstarter appeal and bought two of their devices but said he did not envisage a copyright issue.

Relish wrote to him saying they were worried about confusion. He argued that any confusion between his network and their product would only be beneficial but they did not agree. Negotiations to buy the name never got off the ground after Greater Manchester’s mayor, Andy Burnham, refused to authorise funds, the Guardian understands.

Boardman has since agreed to restyle his project the Bee Network, keeping the same logo, which he hopes will be used on all branding, including any future Greater Manchester-wide public bike hire scheme. Transport for Greater Manchester has also registered Bee Ways, ByBee and Follow The Bee with the government’s Intellectual Property Office.

Boardman said: “Beelines is a wonderful and catchy term and, because of that, it is in wide use around the transport world. This means we weren’t legally able to utilise the term as fully as we’d like for the other services we are busy planning. Consequently, we have decided to tweak our branding at this early stage. While the yellow bee motif will remain at the heart of our plans, the term ‘Beeline’, the name of the infrastructure report submitted to the GM leaders last year, won’t be used going forward.



“The network of safe cycling and walking routes that we are creating, which will now be referred to as the Bee Network, are only a part of our plans to enable people to travel without cars. To give people confidence that they will have a good experience, we need to ensure that all infrastructure, products and services carry the same unifying brand; a guarantee of quality and ease of use.”

Relish did not respond to a request for comment.

The first stages of the network formerly known as Beelines are out for consultation. On Thursday night, 180 people turned out to question Boardman in Chorlton, south Manchester, where he has backed a £13.4m project to redesign junctions and main roads to make them safer for pedestrians and cyclists.