A12 into London vs Dartford crossing into London

[Poppie2023]

Hi all,

I'm considering purchasing a property in either Kent or Essex:

Kent: areas Rochester, Gravesend, Maidstone (I know these area's have bad reps)

Essex: Colchester.

Has anyone got experience/knowledge of doing both journeys in to London regularly and what was your preference?

Also which area do you think is more appealing?

The Dartford crossing doesn't go into London. It's a crossing between Kent and Essex. Best way from Kent is to carry on along the A2 and use the blackwall tunnel but traffic would be awful either way tbh.

Hideous either way. Blackwall tunnel is a nightmare at the best of times. Can you train?

I think this is going to massively depend where you're trying to get to.

The A12 is sort of fine but never much fun. They're doing quite a lot of maintenance work on it at the moment. It will be about 40 minutes from Colchester to the final Brentwood exit (i.e. where it meets the M25) - if you were out of rush hour. You'd need to be setting off EARLY to beat rush hour. In rush hour it could be a LOT longer.

The Dartford tunnel is a mixed bag as well, but I don't know it as well. I think the main issues are if a car breaks down, accident or if the winds are so high that they have to use a contraflow system but I don't know how often that happens?

Edited to explain para 2 better.

If you can avoid using the dartford crossing I would. I’d avoid it like the plague.

One of my friends had to go from Bromley (just inside the M25) all the way to Colchester once a week. She hated it so much, it was part of her reason to look for another job.

We have to cross London on a Friday after lunch sometimes currenlty, it takes 1.5 hrs, regardless if we do the A12 or the Dartfold Crossing.