The infamous Britannia roundabout will be replaced with a new double roundabout, the State Government announced this morning.

The works will cost around $3.2 million and will be completed before the end of the year.

Two double-laned roundabouts will replace the existing roundabout, one linking together Dequetteville Road and Wakefield Road, and the other servicing Kensington Road and the north and south sections of Fullarton Road.

The two roundabouts will be linked together, allowing traffic to flow from one into the other. A motorist arriving from Dequetteville Road and travelling to Kensington Road, for example, would enter one roundabout and then the next before exiting into Kensington Road.

All the normal road rules that apply to roundabouts will apply to the new structure. In announcing the project this morning staff from the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure said they expected the roundabout would be easy to navigate because all the road rules would be familiar to motorists.

Premier and Treasurer Jay Weatherill said the roundabout would reduce the number of road accidents at the notorious intersection: 289 have happened at the roundabout in the last five years.

“Motoring and road safety groups have long identified fixing this roundabout as a priority,” Weatherill said.

“But a practical solution has been difficult to find because of the extremely high cost of construction or proposals that have impinged too heavily on the nearby park lands.

“Engineers have devised a solution that does not require costly underpasses, overpasses or new roads that would cut a swathe through the park lands.”

In January last year then-Transport and Infrastructure Minister Pat Conlon said the roundabout functioned well and any solution would be far too expensive to consider.

“I’ve never seen a proposal for an improvement that doesn’t cost more than it’s worth to get that improvement,” Conlon told The Advertiser.

“There are accidents at that roundabout – but they are almost always little dings.

“But it also does clear an amazing volume of traffic and you have to measure what you spend, what money you are taking from other projects, against the benefits.”

At the time Conlon told the newspaper there were no plans to do anything about the roundabout – “not this year, not next year and I don’t know after that.”