The A256 is a major road running along the east coast of

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

between the

Isle of Thanet The Isle of Thanet () is a peninsula forming the easternmost part of Kent, England. While in the past it was separated from the mainland by the Wantsum Channel, it is no longer an island. Archaeological remains testify to its settlement in a ...

and

Dover Dover ( ) is a town and major ferry port in Kent, southeast England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies southeast of Canterbury and east of Maidstone. ...

. It is operated by

Kent County Council Kent County Council is a county council that governs the non-metropolitan county of Kent in England. The non-metropolitan county is smaller than the ceremonial county, which additionally includes the Unitary authorities of England, unitary auth ...

as a primary route, and has seen investment in the past to connect traffic to the Port of Ramsgate, and to the

Pfizer Pfizer Inc. ( ) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered at The Spiral (New York City), The Spiral in Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 184 ...

research centre in

Sandwich A sandwich is a Dish (food), dish typically consisting variously of meat, cheese, sauces, and vegetables used as a filling between slices of bread, or placed atop a slice of bread; or, more generally, any dish in which bread serves as a ''co ...

Route

The A256 begins on the edge of Broadstairs with the A255. Within Thanet, it runs through the Westwood retail park, Westwood Cross, and Haine Road. It meets the A299 Thanet Way from

Faversham Faversham () is a market town in Kent, England, from Sittingbourne, from London and from Canterbury, next to the Swale, a strip of sea separating mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames Estuary. It is close to the A2 road (Great ...

at the

Lord of the Manor Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a historical rural estate. The titles date to the English Feudalism, feudal (specifically English feudal barony, baronial) system. The ...

junction, where it becomes a major road. From here, it heads south towards the former Richborough Power Station,

and Dover as a high quality road.

History

Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

ran from Dover to Woodnesborough, in roughly the same direction as the modern A256, though on a different route. It is not mentioned in the second century ''

Antonine Itinerary The Antonine Itinerary (, "Itinerary of the Emperor Antoninus") is an , a register of the stations and distances along various roads. Seemingly based on official documents, possibly in part from a survey carried out under Augustus, it describes t ...

'', but this may simply have been as it was not an important route. The basic route of the modern road was recognised as a turnpike by the start of the 19th century. The Sandwich bypass opened in 1981; prior to this, the A256 ran over the Sandwich Toll Bridge and was a major source of local congestion. A further upgrade from Whitfield to Eastry was completed in the 1990s, bypassing those villages and Tilmanstone to the east. The A256 was outlined as a strategic corridor by Kent County Council in 1999. At a board meeting the following year, two proposals ("East Kent Access" phases 1 and 2) were announced. The first phase, implemented between 2003 and 2005, contained various junction improvements and upgrading single carriageway sections around Sandwich to dual carriageway. Phase 2 was a major upgrade of the approach to Thanet and the largest highway project constructed by the council. It included a new A299 dual carriageway bypassing

Cliffsend Cliffsend is a village (sometimes written, correctly, as Cliffs End) and civil parish situated almost west of Ramsgate, Kent, United Kingdom, in the Thanet local government district. Hengist and Horsa landed near here in 410AD, and St August ...

and a new bridge over the Ashford to Ramsgate line. In 2015, dual carriageway sections of the A256 were identified as a possible relief for

Operation Stack Operation Stack was a procedure used by Kent Police and the Port of Dover in England to park (or "stack") lorries on the M20 motorway in Kent when services across the English Channel, such as those through the Channel Tunnel or from the ...

, which would queue Dover-bound freight vehicles along the road.

References

External links

A256 on Roads By 10
{{DEFAULTSORT:2-0256 Roads in Kent