M2 Junction 4 slips close overnight on 23 and 24 September. Jacobs Lane in Hoo is shut to cars and walkers for 21 days, with three water jobs too.

Five towns, one river and a single A2 threading the lot together. When something is dug up in Medway, everybody feels it.

This is the Medway roadworks and travel picture as it stands today, and it covers two things. First, what is actually being worked on now, checked against the council’s, National Highways’ and Southeastern’s own pages on 21 September 2026. Second, the standing facts that stay useful all year: the live map, the tunnel closure pattern and the key routes. Every date here comes from an official page, linked so you can check it before you set off.

The next two weeks at a glance (21 September to 4 October 2026)

Where What When Source
Jacobs Lane, Hoo St Werburgh Closed to vehicles and pedestrians for 750 metres from the Stoke Road junction, running south-east. Diversion via Stoke Road and Eschol Road Already shut, since Saturday 19 September, up to 21 days Medway Council order
Castle Avenue, Rochester Closed at the frontage of No. 33 for water supply works. Diversion via Delce Road, Cossack Street and Longley Road Shut from today, Monday 21 September, up to 5 days Medway Council order
Hospital Lane, Rochester Closed at its junction with High Street for water supply repairs. Diversion via High Street, Gundulph Road and St Bartholomews Lane From Tuesday 22 September, up to 4 days Medway Council order
The 00:40 Victoria to Gillingham Diverted to run non-stop from Victoria to Rochester. Use the 00:42 to Ashford International for accessible buses between Bromley South, Meopham and Gillingham Nights of Tuesday 22 to Friday 25 September Southeastern
M2 eastbound at Junction 4, Gillingham Exit and entry slip roads closed overnight, together with both Farthing Corner services slips 8pm Wednesday 23 September to 5am Thursday National Highways 7-day closure report
Portland Street, Chatham Closed at the frontage of No. 3 for water supply repairs. Diversion via Magpie Hall Road, Listmas Road and Waghorn Street From Wednesday 23 September, up to 7 days Medway Council order
M2 eastbound at Junction 4, Gillingham Exit slip road closed overnight a second time 8pm Thursday 24 September to 4am Friday National Highways 7-day closure report
Kingswood Road, Gillingham Closed at the frontage of No. 2a for new gas mains and services. This one is an order the council intends to make, so treat the date as a plan From Monday 28 September, up to 8 days Medway Council order
Harold Road, Cuxton Closed for 30 metres from the Reginald Avenue junction for telecoms work. No alternative route; emergency access kept From Friday 25 September, up to 5 days Medway Council order
Grange Way, Rochester Closed at the frontage of No. 2 for a stop tap replacement. Diversion via Kings Avenue and Maidstone Road From Monday 28 September, up to 5 days Medway Council order
Reed Street, Cliffe Closed for 235 metres east of Church Street while engineers reach an underground structure Wednesday 30 September, one day Medway Council order
Cloisterham Road, Rochester Closed outside No. 44 for a new three-phase cable. No alternative route. An order the council intends to make From Monday 5 October, up to 10 days Medway Council order
Trains towards Dover via Chatham Victoria to Dover Priory trains via Chatham will terminate at Canterbury East. Medway stations are still served Sunday 4 October Southeastern

The two to plan around. Junction 4 is the M2 exit for Gillingham, Hempstead and Rainham, and it goes twice this week, on the Wednesday and Thursday nights. Separately, three water jobs open inside four days: Castle Avenue and Hospital Lane in Rochester, then Portland Street in Chatham.

One limit on the motorway list. National Highways publishes a rolling seven-day report, last updated at 15:30 on 18 September, and it runs only to Thursday 24 September. Anything on the M2 after that night has not been published yet.

Rainham: the four A2 nights are done, and nothing has replaced them

The A2 High Street and Mierscourt Road junction improvement booked four overnight closures at 8pm to 5.30am, and all four have now been worked: resurfacing on Wednesday 9 September, slot cutting for the traffic signal detector loops on Thursday 10 and Friday 11 September, and high friction surfacing on the westbound approach to the crossing on Monday 14 September (Medway Council news, 19 August 2026; scheme update notice).

We re-read the council’s update notice again on 21 September. It is still the August 2026 version and it carries no new dates, and the roadwork schemes page lists the same seven schemes it did a week ago. So there is nothing further booked on the A2 at Rainham.

One caution, in the council’s own words. The programme “could be subject to change due to unforeseen circumstances”, and the contractor “may need to return to site at a later date should there be adverse weather”. The council has not confirmed that all four nights went ahead, and it has not declared the scheme finished. If a night was lost, the closure comes back rather than disappearing.

The junction work itself started on 22 July 2026, under normal hours of Monday to Saturday, 7am to 7pm. The footways, crossing points, kerblines and drainage are done, and ducting is in for the new permanent traffic signals. Footway work continues around the night closures. The council’s number for queries is 01634 333333, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.

Twenty road closures now ordered across Medway, running to 30 November

Medway Council published a batch of ten temporary traffic regulation notices on 10 September 2026, all signed by Adam Bryan, the council’s Director of Place (Public Notice Portal). We re-read every one of the ten again on 21 September. None of the dates has moved.

There is now a second batch, and it is bigger. We swept the Public Notice Portal’s full active-notices list on 21 September, 1,712 traffic orders published nationally since 10 September, and found one more for Medway: a further ten temporary traffic regulation notices published on 17 September 2026 in the Medway Messenger, again signed by Adam Bryan (Public Notice Portal). They are set out in the next section.

Four of the ten are now behind us: Bells Lane in Hoo on Sunday 13 September, Constitution Road in Chatham from Tuesday 15 September, Stoke Road in Rochester on Thursday 17 September and Cooling Street in Cliffe on Friday 18 September. The remaining six are below.

Seven of the ten are orders the council has made. The other three are orders it intends to make, which means the work is programmed but the order is not yet in force, so treat those three dates as intentions rather than decisions.

The first batch, published 10 September

Orders made:

Road Why Closed from Expected length Diversion
Castle Avenue, Rochester Water supply works at the frontage of No. 33 Monday 21 September 5 days Delce Road, Cossack Street and Longley Road
Hospital Lane, Rochester Water supply repairs at the junction with High Street Tuesday 22 September 4 days High Street, Gundulph Road and St Bartholomews Lane
Portland Street, Chatham Water supply repairs at the frontage of No. 3 Wednesday 23 September 7 days Magpie Hall Road, Listmas Road and Waghorn Street

Orders the council intends to make:

Road Why Closed from Expected length Diversion
Kingswood Road, Gillingham New gas mains and services at the frontage of No. 2a Monday 28 September 8 days Either Jeffery Street, Victoria Street and Railway Street, or Railway Street, King Street and Jeffery Street
Gas House Road, Rochester Examination of railway bridge VIR/149, 20 metres each side 10pm Thursday 8 October to 5am Friday 9 October Overnight None available. Emergency vehicle access maintained
Church Street, Cliffe Telephone pole maintenance, about 40 metres either side of Nos 128 and 128A Saturday 10 October 1 day Higham Road, West Street and Buttway Lane

Two things stand out in that list. Eight of the ten are utility jobs, not council road repairs: water, electricity, gas, overhead cable and telephone poles. That is the ordinary pattern, and it is why a road can be resurfaced one month and dug up the next.

And Gas House Road has no diversion at all. It is a short road off Corporation Street in Rochester with no alternative route, so a bridge examination there means the road is simply shut from 10pm until 5am. It is the same junction where the council has been laying ducts for a new crossing, covered further down this page.

The second batch, published 17 September

Ten more orders landed a week later, in the same form (Public Notice Portal). Four are already in force.

Orders made:

Road Why Closed from Expected length Diversion
Jacobs Lane, Hoo St Werburgh Not stated in the notice Saturday 19 September 21 days Stoke Road and Eschol Road. Closed to pedestrians as well as vehicles
Harold Road, Cuxton Telecommunications works, 30 metres from the Reginald Avenue junction Friday 25 September 5 days None available. Emergency vehicle access maintained
Grange Way, Rochester Stop tap replacement at the frontage of No. 2 Monday 28 September 5 days Kings Avenue and Maidstone Road
Reed Street, Cliffe Engineers reaching an underground structure to connect a customer, 235 metres east of Church Street Wednesday 30 September 1 day Not stated

Orders the council intends to make:

Road Why Closed from Expected length Diversion
Cloisterham Road, Rochester A new three-phase service cable laid in a trench outside No. 44 Monday 5 October 10 days None available. Emergency vehicle access maintained
Yokosuka Way, Gillingham Carriageway retexturing for safety, southbound from Grange Road roundabout to the Featherby Road exit Thursday 15 October 1 night, 8pm to 6am Canterbury Street and Gillingham Road. Parking suspended along the closure
Stake Lane, Jade Hill and Essex Road, Halling Raised-table construction and junction improvement. The three roads close in turn, one at a time Friday 16 October To 30 November Kent Road and local roads. Essex Road’s one-way rule is suspended while it is shut
Sharnal Street, High Halstow A new water connection Monday 19 October 3 days None available. Emergency vehicle access maintained
Meresborough Lane, Gillingham Telephone pole maintenance, 60 metres either side of Bryony School Monday 26 October 2 days Meresborough Road, Moor Street (A2) and South Bush Lane

The longest of these by far is Halling, where Stake Lane, Jade Hill and Essex Road are booked from 16 October through to 30 November. Only one of the three is shut at any moment, but that is six weeks of moving closures in one small grid of streets.

Event closures already booked to the end of November

The same batch carries a community events order, in force from 20 September to 29 November (Public Notice Portal). It fixes these dates now:

  • Sunday 8 November, Remembrance Sunday: closures in Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham from 7am to 3pm, and in Rainham from 10am to 1pm
  • Saturday 28 November, Hempstead Christmas Lights: 5pm to 9.30pm

In Rochester the Remembrance schedule shuts Castle Hill from Esplanade to Epaul Lane, Epaul Lane itself, and Rochester High Street from the Corporation Street bus lane to Star Hill, with the one-way and no-entry rules suspended so residents and event vehicles can get through.

Each order is valid for a maximum of 18 months or until the work is finished, whichever comes first, and the restrictions apply only while the signs are displayed. Medway Council’s traffic management team takes queries on 01634 331165 or at traffic.management@medway.gov.uk.

Trains: quiet daytimes now, then a hard Sunday on 11 October

The weekend closure via Swanley on 19 and 20 September has been and gone, and the Victoria stopping service is running normally again. We checked Southeastern’s date pages for 26 and 27 September and for 3 October, and none of them affects Medway.

Two things are still ahead.

Weeknights: the last trains home

The overnight work is on the Victoria route this week, on the nights of Tuesday 22 to Friday 25 September (Southeastern). From 00:10, buses replace trains between Lewisham and Gravesend via Sidcup, and:

  • the 00:40 London Victoria to Gillingham runs non-stop from Victoria to Rochester
  • for the stations in between, Southeastern points passengers at the 00:42 Victoria to Ashford International and a connecting bus from Bromley South via Meopham to Gillingham
  • the 00:25 Victoria to Ashford International leaves later than usual

The St Pancras to Faversham night buses that ran on 16 and 17 September are finished. We checked the dates through to 4 October and found no further late-night Medway changes after Friday 25 September.

If you rely on the last train back from Victoria, that is the week to check before you go out.

October: the two closures that hit Medway hardest

Both are published in full, and both are worse for Medway than anything in September was. There is also a smaller one on Sunday 4 October, when Victoria to Dover trains via Chatham terminate at Canterbury East; Medway stations keep their service that day.

Sunday 11 October: no trains between Rochester and Rainham. Chatham and Gillingham stations are closed all day and served only by accessible buses calling at all stations between Rochester and Rainham. Victoria trains terminate at Rochester, and so do the high speed trains from St Pancras, with extra Victoria to Strood trains running via Bexleyheath instead. Thameslink runs nothing between Gravesend and Rainham, with tickets accepted on the replacement buses.

Sunday 18 October: no trains between Gillingham and Faversham. Victoria and St Pancras services terminate at Gillingham, with accessible buses on to Faversham calling at all stations except Teynham, and a minibus via Teynham. Rainham station is closed all day. Everything through Sittingbourne is shut, including the Sheerness branch.

Our Medway trains to London page has the normal times, fares and the high speed option.

The M2 and the motorway network: Junction 4 goes twice

National Highways’ 7-day closure report was refreshed at 15:30 on 18 September and covers Friday 18 September to Thursday 24 September 2026. We read all seven of its daily sheets.

The closures that hit Medway are both at Junction 4. On the night of Wednesday 23 September, 8pm to 5am, the M2 eastbound exit and entry slip roads at Junction 4 are closed, along with the exit and entry slips for Farthing Corner services. National Highways files them under one scheme, “M2 eastbound Jct 4, slip and lane closures for maintenance works”. The eastbound exit slip then closes again on the night of Thursday 24 September, 8pm to 4am, this time under a scheme running from Lidsing Road to Junction 4.

Junction 4 is the M2 exit for Gillingham, Hempstead and Rainham. The report names no diversion for either night; the next exit eastbound is Junction 5 for the A249 at Stockbury.

Otherwise the week is clear close to home:

  • No closure at Junction 1 at Strood, or anywhere else on the M2 between Junctions 1 and 4, the stretch serving Strood, Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham and Rainham.
  • Nothing on the A249, the A229 over Blue Bell Hill, or the A289. Those are the links to Sittingbourne, Maidstone and the Medway Tunnel.

Two more worth knowing if you drive further east or west, both outside Medway. On the A2 towards Canterbury, the Harbledown slip roads close on the nights of Monday 21 to Thursday 24 September, 8pm to 6am, for electrical work. On the Gravesham stretch beyond Strood, the A2 westbound slip roads at Cobham services close on the nights of Wednesday 23 and Thursday 24 September, 9pm to 6am, for survey work. The M2 Junction 6 emergency closure at Faversham ended at 6am this morning.

The report looks only seven days ahead, so nothing beyond Monday 21 September is published yet.

Where to check live roadworks

Medway Council publishes its live works through one.network, the national roadworks map. The quickest route in is the council’s own roadworks in Medway page, which embeds the map. Registering free on one.network shows the full description of each job. Day-to-day incidents and emergency closures are posted by the council’s highways team on X at @MedwayHighways.

Worth knowing: most holes in Medway’s roads are not the council’s. Utility companies dig under permits issued through the New Roads and Street Works Act, which is why a road can be resurfaced one month and opened up again the next, and why eight of the ten closures ordered on 10 September are water, gas, electricity or cable jobs.

Resurfacing: still nothing new since August

The council’s resurfacing page was checked again on 21 September and has not changed since our last read. The completed table for 2026 to 2027 still ends in August:

Road Ward Section Completed Length
Ratcliffe Highway All Saints Between The Fenn Bell Project and St Marys Cottages 12 August 2026 680m
Maidstone Road Fort Pitt and Fort Horsted Between The Ridgeway and Horsted Gyratory 13 August 2026 327m
City Way Rochester East and Warren Wood, Fort Pitt From the junction with The Fort to St John Fisher Catholic primary school 13 August 2026 164m
Station Road Strood Rural Whole road 14 August 2026 450m

That is 1,621 metres of carriageway across the four, on top of the six schemes finished in May and June. Ratcliffe Highway, at 680 metres, is the longest single stretch the council has recorded as resurfaced this financial year. A separate table of smaller schemes run by the council’s highways inspectorate still records York Avenue in Gillingham South, the whole road, 390 metres, completed on 15 August 2026 as the most recent entry anywhere on the page.

Two things the page still does not tell you:

  • Richmond Road, Gillingham has come off the current list without appearing in the completed one. It was closed for patching on Friday 28 and Saturday 29 August, working 7am to 7pm (resident letter, diversion plan). The scheme notice has been taken down, which usually means it is done, but the council has not recorded it as complete and we cannot confirm it.
  • James Street, Gillingham is still the only carriageway scheme on the upcoming list. Its 30 May 2026 date was lost to emergency utility works, the page has said “a new date will be provided shortly” ever since, and three and a half months later there is still no date.

A separate group of smaller schemes stays listed on the roadwork schemes page long after their programmed windows: the High Halstow bus stop improvements on The Street (started 23 June for five to six weeks), Elm Avenue and Broadwood Road in Hoo (25 May, two weeks), Weeds Wood in Walderslade (22 April, four weeks), and Blue Boar Lane in Rochester, where phase one ran from 16 March and the remaining work is still to be programmed with Network Rail. Treat those notices as background, not as live closures.

Rochester: Corporation Street at Gas House Road

At the A2 Corporation Street junction with Gas House Road, the council’s term contractor Volker Highways has been laying ducts and signal pole sockets for a new pedestrian crossing phase. The notice says the work started on 3 August 2026 for about two weeks, Monday to Friday, 8am to 11pm, under temporary lights and a lane closure on Corporation Street (scheme notice). That programmed window has long passed and the notice has not been updated. The new signal poles go in separately later, so expect a second short visit to the same junction. Gas House Road itself is then due to shut overnight on 8 October for the railway bridge examination above.

The Medway Tunnel: how the closures work

The Medway Tunnel carries the A289 under the river between Strood and Chatham, and it is the council’s to run. It opened in 1996, the first immersed-tube road tunnel built in England.

The maintenance pattern is regular enough to plan around. The tunnel closes for three nights roughly every three months, usually early in March, June, September and December, with restrictions from 8pm to 6am. Dates can shift. They are signed in advance on the approach roads and on motorway variable message signs.

September’s closure has still not been published. The council’s “view upcoming closures” button points at the live roadworks map rather than a dated list. We checked the tunnel page again on 21 September, with the month the pattern points at almost gone, and there is no date on it. If you cross the tunnel late at night, watch the signs on the A289 approach. When it is shut overnight, cross-river traffic falls back on Rochester Bridge or the M2.

The council put a figure on its funding application on 25 August 2026: it is asking the Department for Transport’s Structures Fund for £9.25 million, and adding £1 million of its own, to renew the tunnel’s 1996 electrical, ventilation, pumping and life-safety systems (Medway Council). The council’s own tunnel page confirms the application “is currently under consideration, and a funding decision has not been made”. We covered the bid, and what happens if it fails, in Medway Tunnel: £10.5m bid to replace its 1996 systems.

The key routes, and what feeds what

Schematic diagram of Medway's key roads: the A2 running through Strood, Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham and Rainham, the M2 to the south, the A228 to Hoo and the Isle of Grain, the A289 through the Medway Tunnel, the A229 to Maidstone and the A278 link to the M2
How Medway's main roads fit together. Diagram by Medway Live; schematic, not to scale.
  • The A2 is the spine, the old London Road running through Strood, Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham and Rainham. When it clogs, the towns clog.
  • The M2 runs south of the towns and takes the through traffic. Its Junction 5 upgrade at Stockbury, including the flyover carrying the A249 over the roundabout, was completed in February 2025.
  • The A228 is the Hoo Peninsula’s one real road, from Strood out through Chattenden and Hoo St Werburgh to the Isle of Grain, and south to Cuxton for the M20.
  • The A229 climbs Blue Bell Hill from Star Hill in Rochester to Maidstone and the M20, the main link south.
  • The A278 is the three-mile dual carriageway tying Gillingham and Hempstead Valley to the M2 at Junction 4.
  • The A289 links Strood to Gillingham through the Medway Tunnel, the northern bypass of the whole conurbation.

Further ahead, the Lower Thames Crossing, the new tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, will join the A2 and M2 corridor west of Medway. It is the biggest change coming to the area’s road network.

No park and ride, so here is the honest alternative

Medway has no park and ride. The council’s travel pages list none, and the former Rochester park and ride site was disposed of years ago. If you are heading into a town centre, the realistic options are the council’s car parks, covered street by street in our parking in Medway guide, or the bus.

Buses are run by several operators, with Arriva’s Kent and Medway network the biggest, alongside Chalkwell, Nu-Venture, ASD and others. Routes and live departure information are linked from the council’s bus services page, and most town routes pass through Chatham Waterfront bus station. The national £3 single fare cap applies on most services.

Frequently asked questions

Where can I see current roadworks in Medway? On the council’s roadworks in Medway page, which embeds the live one.network map, or at one.network directly. Emergency closures are posted on X by @MedwayHighways.

Is the A2 still closed at Rainham? No. The four night closures for the Mierscourt Road junction scheme were booked for 9, 10, 11 and 14 September and all four dates have passed, with no further nights published (Medway Council update notice). The council has not declared the scheme complete, and its notice reserves the right to come back if weather stopped a night.

Which Medway roads are closed right now, or closing next? Jacobs Lane in Hoo has been shut to vehicles and pedestrians since 19 September for up to 21 days, and Castle Avenue in Rochester is shut from today, 21 September, for up to five days. Then come Hospital Lane in Rochester (22 September), Portland Street in Chatham (23 September), Harold Road in Cuxton (25 September), Grange Way in Rochester and Kingswood Road in Gillingham (both 28 September), Reed Street in Cliffe (30 September), Cloisterham Road in Rochester (5 October), Gas House Road in Rochester (overnight, 8 October), Church Street in Cliffe (10 October), Yokosuka Way in Gillingham (overnight, 15 October), Halling’s Stake Lane, Jade Hill and Essex Road (16 October to 30 November), Sharnal Street in High Halstow (19 October) and Meresborough Lane in Gillingham (26 October). The full detail is in the tables above (10 September batch; 17 September batch).

Is the M2 closed in Medway this week? Yes, at Junction 4 for Gillingham, on two nights. The eastbound exit and entry slips close 8pm on Wednesday 23 September to 5am on Thursday, together with both Farthing Corner services slips, and the eastbound exit slip closes again 8pm on Thursday 24 September to 4am on Friday. Nothing at Junction 1 at Strood, and nothing on the A249, the A229 or the A289, in the report published to 24 September (National Highways).

When does the Medway Tunnel close? For planned maintenance, usually three nights every three months, early in March, June, September and December, 8pm to 6am. Dates are signed in advance on the approach roads and on motorway variable message signs. The council does not publish a dated list online, and as at 21 September no September nights had been announced, with the quarter almost over.

Are the trains to London affected this month? Yes, but only at night for the rest of September. On the nights of 22 to 25 September the 00:40 Victoria to Gillingham runs non-stop to Rochester, with accessible buses from Bromley South via Meopham (Southeastern). Daytime services on 26, 27 September and 3 October are unaffected. On Sunday 4 October the Victoria to Dover trains via Chatham stop short at Canterbury East, though Medway stations are still served. The big one is Sunday 11 October: no Southeastern trains at all between Rochester and Rainham, with Victoria trains terminating at Rochester and buses calling at all stations. Southeastern’s notice says Chatham and Gillingham will be “closed all weekend and will only be served by accessible buses” (Southeastern).

Is there a park and ride in Medway? No. The council’s travel pages list no park and ride service. Use the town car parks (see parking in Medway) or the bus network.

Sources

Planning a trip into the towns? Start with where to park, and if you are leaving the car at home, the trains to London. More Medway information is on the Medway Live home page.

Works dates are the published schedules as of 21 September 2026 and can move; check the live map before you travel. Last updated 21 September 2026.