A289
From Roader's Digest: The SABRE Wiki
| A289 | ||||
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| From: | Strood (TQ697696) | |||
| To: | Gillingham (TQ789666) | |||
| Length: | 9.1 miles (14.6 km) | |||
| Meets: | M2, A2, A228 | |||
| Highways Authorities | ||||
| Traditional Counties | ||||
| Route outline (key) | ||||
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The A289 ran for many years from the A2 west of Strood in Kent to Wainscott, allowing access to the Isle of Grain avoiding more built up urban areas. Nowadays, however, along with a small section of A2 and the A278, it forms a northern bypass of the Medway Towns.
Route
Strood - Gillingham
The A289's eastbound carriageway leaves the A2 just south of the turn to the Inn on the Lake, while a sliproad now also provides an exit just a few yards before the end of the northbound M2, to encourage through-traffic from the south and west to avoid Strood town centre and the older alignment of the A289. The current road sweeps eastward as a non-primary dual-carriageway, with a couple of GSJs where it passes firstly beneath the A226 (part the historic coaching route from London to Rochester via Gravesend, and the original A2 in early numbering drafts), and then the B2000 to Cliffe, where controversial plans to build and airport were finally cancelled in the early 2000s.
A mile or so further and there’s a roundabout, where the A228 leads off left to the Isle of Grain, and the B2108 (the old A289) turns right into Wainscott. Still dual-carriageway, there is a short multiplex with the A228, which leaves for Strood at the next roundabout.
Here the A289 turns left down towards the River Medway, and soon we are cruising through the Medway Tunnel, built in 1996 in an attempt to alleviate traffic problems on the A2 through Rochester and Chatham. Once through the tunnel there is a junction for Chatham’s historic dockyard: the Victory was built here, but now the dockyard’s a museum, a branch of Greenwich University and the inevitable prime site for executive housing. A shopping outlet village now sits on some of the old dockyard area.
The A289 then squeezes past the suburb of Brompton, with its associations with the Royal Engineers, and then merges with what used to be the line of the B2004 - this is supposed to be a multiplex now, but the signs imply that the road from the A289 into Brompton is the B2004 in one direction but the B2003 in the other.
The next mile and a half is really a suburban street, as it is an in-place upgrade of the B2004, there being no land left for a proper bypass. Shortly after this, a roundabout is reached, and the B2004 leaves for Lower Rainham, allowing the A289 to run on new build up to the A2 east of Gillingham. And that's it. To complete the ring road, turn left at the A2, then turn right onto the A278.
Original Author(s): Simon Mold
History
The A289 was the first new 3 digit A road to be allocated to the 2 zone, being in place by 1924.
