Some of this is shown in Collins 2010 as off-line dualling, alongside the A256.

From Transport Briefing.
Transport minister Paul Clark has granted Full Approval for two Kent road schemes costing £122.5m, allowing construction to get underway this autumn.

The Department for Transport will make available up to £81.25m of the £87m needed to improve road connections between the Isle of Thanet, Kent International Airport, the M2 motorway, Canterbury and the ports of Ramsgate and Dover and the Channel Tunnel.

The East Kent Access Improvements scheme will see almost five miles of the A256 and A299 upgraded to dual carriageway. Main construction works are scheduled to start in October with the scheme expected to be completed in late 2012.

A further £23.4m will be provided towards the £35m cost of completing the Sittingbourne Northern Relief Road, a strategic link between the A249 and the eastern outskirts of the town. The Homes and Communities Agency is providing nearly £8m towards the cost.

Main construction works for the Sittingbourne relief road are due to start in September with the scheme planned for completion in late 2011. The 1.5km road will link the Ridham Avenue roundabout with Castle Road roundabout and cross Milton Creek. It will improve access in and around Sittingbourne, reduce congestion, improve safety for road users and attract investment to the town and Thames Gateway.

Jonathan Shaw, south east regional minister, said: "The East Kent Access Scheme will help alleviate the problems of low economic performance and social deprivation and symptoms of isolation in east Kent. It will improve accessibility for Thanet residents to areas of employment including Manston Airport, Port of Ramsgate and Pfizer offices in Sandwich. The scheme will relieve congestion, improve air quality and enhance the economic development of East Kent."

The western element of the Sittingbourne Northern Relief Road, linking the A249 to the Ridham Avenue roundabout, was privately funding and completed in spring 2005 while the eastern element of the road - at the roundabout on Castle Road - was completed several years ago as part of a public/private sector initiative to further expand Eurolink Business Park. The section that extends into East Hall Farm, heading towards the A2, was also privately funded and was completed in 2007.

This topic was heavily mentioned at the Canterbury Awayday so I'm very much in the know about it. The diagram of the A256/A299 offline dualling can be viewed here with the A256/A299 briefly multiplexing and crossing Cliff's End at an underpass where the level crossing is situated and the Lord of the Manor double roundabouts will be redesigned as well.

There's no knowledge of the speed limit enforced on the new dualled stretch but I'm hoping it won't be like the A256 south of the power station where it's 50 with a thick pavement and no safety barriers.

And finally concerning the A2/A28 junction upgrade at Wincheap, I was lucky enough to be recieve the plans containing the blueprints for the London bound on slip and willing to show them if prompted. The construction date is estimated to commence in april of next year.

Being a member of a nearby Parish Council who were invited to have a say in the Planning Application for the on-slip, I have acquired a CD of the full plans for this slip road too - including one for the traffic light layout and another for the street lighting layout. I can exclusively reveal that the plans specify Iridium lanterns............

Tony

Never mind, eh, Tony, can't win them all

And there I was about to post Tony the diagram of the on slip. My rendition of the plans include an A3 of the document along with the b/w diagram highlighting the sliproad as well as the altercations to the A28.

The community centre will be obviously demolished but some of the on street parking will be sacrificed as well so it's nearly a give/take procedure for the new sliproad.

Thanks for the kind thought; it was nice of you. However this CD contains almost every kind of plan and every statistic anyone could possibly want and filled the CD to capacity.

The community centre mentioned is actually fairly derelict and almost certainly unused - replaced some years ago by a newer building. This scheme will also mean the relocation of a play area and alterations to the car park for the current community centre. New parking spaces are being arranged nearby for the loss of the on-street parking bays lost to the scheme. In fact the downsides are so small and the local benefits are so great every local authority in the area given the chance to have a say was fully supportive of the scheme.

What is annoying about the whole scheme is that it should have been done by the Highways Agency, and not the County Council. After all, the A2 bypass was a DoT road built in 1979/80 (and is still an HA maintained trunk road) which gave us this botched intersection in the first place, but the Highways Agency refused to even consider/plan the scheme for a minimum of 5 years.

Tony

We took the kids to Sevenoaks pool on Easter Monday only to discover it closed (the website suggested otherwise). Where to take three disappointed girlies swimming then? I had a brainwave – Broadstairs! Having never been there I thought it would be worth a look.

Managed to roll into town an hour later thanks to the excellent M20-A2somethingorother-M2-A299 route, and noticed that the A299 dualling next to Manston airport (sorry, ‘Kent International’) is coming along nicely. All they need to do now is build a motorway to Viking Beach and I will be happy.

I think Kent has been quite well blessed with a lot of road upgrading schemes over the pas few years, whilst a lot of other areas have gone in completely the opposite direction, although Ashford is probably a big exception.

Not sure if this is the right topic, but as one poster mentioned Sevenoaks one has to ask:

What on earth is stopping the construction of two east-facing slips between the M26 and the A225? We're talking less than half a mile of tarmac over undeveloped land, already in place for an interchange. Such an easy job which would relieve the poor villages of Wrotham Heath, Borough Green, Ightham and Seal.

Your trip from Sevenoaks to Broadstairs would have been about ten minutes quicker

By the way, the link between the M20 and M2 is probably the A249, a very hairy road to drive down coming back towards West Kent with "deceptive bends" (as they used to be signed) and a steep gradient. At the bottom is the touching Jade's Crossing footbridge, named after a poor girl who was killed crossing the road.

That would probably be the A249, which is fine going the way you did, and pretty much okay from the other direction, save for southbound down Detling Hill is the original alignment of the road as it tips over the Downs and it'll give you a surprise if you thought the '249 was a high quality dual carriageway!

I don't find Ashford particularly bad, since I can get to the M20 pretty quickly, though the J9 works at the moment are still causing major headaches. Still, they'll be gone soon.

Oh, and if you were in Sevenoaks, how did you get to the M20? The only way I can think is to go through Westerham and Wrotham to M26 J2a. What a nightmare.

I went down the A299 and A256 for the first time in about 6 months today and it looks like it's coming on very nicely on the Manston end of the works, looked like the surfacing crews were there feverishly getting the road ready for partial opening (I imagine that between the Minster roundabout and the cliffsend Roundabout) as part of the Ramsgate-bound side runs under the existing A229, which will have to obviously be removed.

At the other end by Pfizers, markings are in place on the new roundabout and it looks like a traffic switch is imminent here too with the new layout already marked out, and the current trafficked route is marked by cones.

I parked up and manged to look across the fields and saw a two span bridge complete and machines filling in the approaches with chalk.

Couldn't get up Foads Hill to check on the Underpass works however

Yes, down the right hand spur to A25, then right through to Wrotham and join M26/M20 (Westerham is in the other direction on A25 so you don't go through it). Actually didn't take too long as there wasn't much traffic.

But as noted above it would be great if you could get on to the M26 at M25 J5. But we all know why they didn't build that properly don't we??

Ah yes, the famouse Jade's Crossing. The (8-year-old IIRC) girl ran out into the (70mph) dual carriageway a few years back and was run over. This led to a huge campaign to increase safety, as the road crossing connected the two halves of Detling village. They put in a 50mph limit on the whole stretch, with a speed camera, pending construction of the bridge.

Months later the bridge went up but did the 50 mph limit and camera get removed? Did they heck. Pretty much everyone brakes for the camera and speeds up afterwards, from what I've seen, making it a bit pointless really.
(Coming down that hill is fun though - it's the original carriageway and is quite twisty. Going uphill is one of the ways people around here used to test their new cars, as if you could do 70 all the way up there in 5th gear you knew you had a decent car!)

I went up Detling Hill last Monday and there was a camera van parked right at the top of the hill just before the speed limit reverts to NSL. Luckily, traffic was busy and I had followed another vehicle up the hill at 50 mph, and was only just starting to overtake and increase speed when I noticed it there raising revenue.

Tony

Why would you build just two slip-roads and not a complete junction?

Because access to the M25 west and north are provided at junction M25 5 and adding west facing slips at the A225 would not cater for traffic trying to reach the M25 northbound. However, I suppose west facing M26 slips could be added at A225 Otford to reduce the amount of traffic wanting to reach the M25 west traffic going through Riverhead.

Personally, I think M25 J5 should be improved anyway to cater for all movements, if this happened I am not sure if Otford would warrant a junction of its own?

Redundancy is an indication of quality of a network. That's why I don't see a contradiction between an upgrade of Chevening Junction and a complete junction on the M26. Sevenoaks has two railway links to central London. It warrants two access points to motorways as well.

Only you seem to assume the motorway system is built for commuting and not the movement of goods and services.

Or ICBMs.

Who says that it was meant for goods and services?

Not sure if that has added anything to the discussion?