Victoria’s $200m Mickleham Covid quarantine hub to close after eight months

A $200 million facility designed to house returning travellers during the Covid-19 pandemic will close just eight months after it was opened.

Victoria’s purpose-built $200m Covid quarantine facility will close next week, just eight months after it first opened.

The Mickleham hub, 30km north of Melbourne’s CBD, has housed just 2168 residents in total.

Designed primarily to house incoming travellers and frontline workers, the facility was eventually finished in February, after Australia reopened its international borders.

The quarantine hub in Mickleham opened in February. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui

The facility was built and paid for by the Commonwealth government after Covid famously leaked out of Victoria’s hotel quarantine system.

It had been operated by the state government since opening and will now be handed back to the federal government.

Police Minister Anthony Carbines said the quarantine hub had served its purpose.

“(The facility’s) closure is another step in our recovery from the pandemic,” he said.

The quarantine hub was paid for by the Commonwealth government. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui

“Australia needed these facilities before the pandemic first hit – but this important facility now exists as an insurance policy in the event of a future pandemic, or to provide accommodation in emergencies like natural disasters.”

The hub will close next week and its staff will supported to find work elsewhere.

A small number will continue working to shut down the site before it is handed back to the Commonwealth, which owns it, on January 1 next year.