The route is proposed to run around 70 km (43 miles) from Darlington to Blyth, in North East England.

The Great North Cycleway was proposed in 2011 and was initially expected to take two years to complete[4] The proposed Great North Cycleway is named after the Great North Road, historically the main highway between London and Scotland (until road building in the 20th Century routed motor traffic onto bypasses and motorways and away from urban areas).

In 2015, Newcastle's John Dobson Street was converted from a dual carriageway back into a single carriageway road, using the reclaimed space to create a segregated cycleway, which forms part of the Great North Cycleway.

The proposed route starts in Darlington, heading North close to the A167 road and crossing the over the East Coast Main Line and the River Wear as it approaches Durham.

The proposed route crosses or meets the existing National Cycle Network several times along its length: Map of the route using OpenStreetMap data - Great North Cycleway highlighted on Waymarked Trails The route is shown on cycle network maps produced by Newcastle and Gateshead councils: