https://www.gov.uk/government/news/budget-2018-24-things-you-need-to-know wrote:17. £30 billion to improve roads
A £28.8 billion National Roads Fund, paid for by road tax, includes £25.3 billion for the Strategic Road Network (motorways, trunk and A roads). The largest ever investment of this kind.
It will also help fund the new network of local roads (known as the Major Road Network), and larger local road projects.
Local authorities will receive £420 million to fix potholes on roads and renew bridges and tunnels, and there will be a £150 million to improve local traffic hotspots such as roundabouts.
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Local high streets will benefit from £675 million to improve transport links, re-develop empty shops as homes and offices and restore and re-use old and historic properties.
My initial response: how the hell is the Major Road Network (which I think is A/B roads managed by councils) "local roads"? The pothole funding will have some uses, but that's damage mostly caused by motorists and neglect anyway. Probably that £30bn will only give cycling a few remedial schemes which will provide cycleways to avoid the motorists who are clogging things up.
There's some chance of some of the £675m to improve high street transport links might do something to help cycling, but local campaigns are probably going to need to be noisy and threaten objections to local council bids that don't allow high street cycling for that to happen.
In general, though, it looks like yet another missed opportunity - yet another budget with loads of money spent on things that reduce cycling and make things worse for cyclists and very few obvious ways that money might be spend on things that increase or improve cycling. The health/inactivity crisis will continue to grow and councils will keep failing to build their way out of congestion.
Please tell me I'm wrong!