Developing story: this article reports the position as described on Saturday afternoon. Traffic conditions on the M25 change quickly — drivers should check live travel information before setting off.
Saturday shoppers heading for Bluewater were caught in long, slow-moving queues on the M25 this afternoon after a crash near the shopping centre.
The disruption built up by the A2 turn of the motorway in Darenth, a short distance from the turn for Bluewater, at around 2.40pm on Saturday 24 October. Pictures from the scene showed a line of cars crawling along, with traffic described as awful by a reporter at the scene.
Traffic was still moving, but only at a slow pace, and the road was described as super busy — not least because shoppers were making their way to the centre for a Saturday afternoon out.
Bluewater, at Greenhithe in Kent, sits just off the M25 on the Dartford stretch of the orbital motorway, and a Saturday afternoon is exactly when the roads around it fill up. Add a crash into that mix and the queues build fast, with drivers heading for the shops joining commuters and through-traffic on one of the busiest sections of the whole motorway. It is not the first time this stretch has ground to a halt: an earlier crash near Dartford also closed lanes and left traffic at a standstill.
What we know — and what we do not
What has been confirmed so far is limited to the essentials: a crash was reported near the M25 and A2 by Darenth, close to the Bluewater turn, and it left cars in gridlock with traffic moving slowly.
What has not been confirmed is just as important. The reports so far do not state which carriageway or direction was affected, how many vehicles were involved, whether anyone was hurt, or whether any lanes were closed. None of that should be assumed — and no diversion route has been published for this incident, so drivers should not follow unofficial shortcuts.
That is normal for the first hours of a motorway incident: the picture firms up as emergency services and traffic managers report back, and the queues often ease before the full details are known.
Why this stretch clogs so quickly
The Dartford stretch of the M25 is one of the most heavily used parts of the road network in the country. It carries the orbital motorway across the Thames at the Dartford Crossing, linking Kent with Essex and feeding traffic into and out of London from the east.
On a Saturday, that through-traffic meets a second wave: shoppers heading for Bluewater, one of the largest out-of-town shopping centres in the south-east, plus visitors to the retail and leisure parks around Greenhithe and Dartford. When something goes wrong on the motorway itself, there is very little slack — and the queues back up quickly around the junction.
It is also a weekend of change on the M25 further west. The planned anticlockwise closure at junction 15 near Heathrow was postponed because of forecast bad weather and will now take place from 31 October to 1 November instead — a reminder of how much planned and unplanned disruption the orbital route absorbs in a single weekend.
What drivers should do
Anyone heading for Bluewater or travelling on the M25 around Dartford on Saturday evening should check live traffic information before leaving and allow extra time for the journey. Conditions can clear quickly once a crash scene is dealt with, but they can also worsen as evening shopping traffic builds.
Drivers already caught in the queues are advised to stay patient, keep a safe gap, and avoid sudden lane changes — the kind of behaviour that turns a slow queue into a second incident.
We will update this article if a clearer picture emerges of what happened, which part of the motorway was affected, or when traffic returned to normal. For now, the message for Saturday drivers is simple: expect delays around Bluewater and the Dartford stretch of the M25, and check before you travel.
Anyone who witnessed the crash or has information that could help can contact the police on 101.
