The M2 is a motorway in Kent, England, built to bypass the A2 through Medway, Sittingbourne, and Faversham. It serves as a link between London, North Kent, and the Isle of Sheppey, crossing the River Medway via the Medway Viaducts. With seven junctions along the route for local and regional access, the motorway connects back to the A2 at both ends, while its eastern end also leads onto the A299 towards Ramsgate.
The M2 was originally planned to be a direct link between London and the Channel Ports, which later materialised as the M20, and the current route was planned to open as the A2(M). However, after the Daily Telegraph published an article that misnamed the A2(M) as the M2, the Ministry of Transport changed the number of the motorway. The section of the M2 between junctions 2 and 5 was opened by Ernest Marples on 29 May 1963, and the rest of the M2 from junctions 1 to 2 and junctions 5 to 7 opened in 1965.
The Ministry of Transport originally planned to extend the M2 to London and Dover. Due to a lack of traffic demand, the A2 was instead upgraded to a dual carriageway from Faversham to Dover and to a six-lane dual carriageway with hard shoulders from Strood to Swanscombe towards London. The six-lane section of the A2 was opened at noon on 29 July 1966 by the Bishop of Rochester, David Say, and George Harris, the managing director of Monk Ltd.
Mitigating traffic congestion on the M2 was considered as early as 1980 when a proposal to ban heavy goods vehicles from using the second lane on an uphill section of the M2 was debated in Parliament. Junction 1 was altered in the late 1990s to accommodate a link to the Medway Tunnel, which opened as the A289. From 2000 to 2003, the M2 was widened from four to eight lanes from junctions 1 to 3 and to six lanes from junctions 3 to 4. This required a new bridge to be built in parallel to the original Medway Viaduct to provide extra capacity.
From June 2021 to February 2025, National Highways remodelled junction 5 of the M2 at a cost of ã100 million to provide a flyover for A249 through traffic and improved connections between the M2 and A249. The main aims of the scheme were to improve capacity, connectivity and safety.