Deputy Premier and Minister for Commonwealth Games Delivery Jacinta Allan made the announcement on Wednesday morning as she laid out the Andrews Government's commitments to infrastructure development at Eureka (Mars) Stadium.

The village will house 1800 athletes and officials over the period of the games, and will be composed of temporary and permanent constructions, designed in conjunction with Wadawurrung community members. When the games are complete the site will revert to housing and 'vital infrastructure' for Ballarat, the government says.

"You'll see activity gear up over the coming months ahead, as we get ready to build...the village in 178 weeks time," Minister Allan said.

"The village is a great legacy outcome for adding to Ballarat housing, housing stock, particularly looking at how we can add to that affordable and social housing."

The saleyards, which opened in 1864 and operated for over 150 years until 2018, are in the process of being cleared and rehabilitated - a process expected to take years and cost millions. Dead livestock were buried on the site for decades, and there is residue from trucks and fuels, contamination from drenches and faeces, and other pollution.

The site also contained amounts of asbestos which were cleared in 2021. Who will pay for the final remediation of the site is unclear. The Courier understands the City of Ballarat is responsible for surface remediation, while deeper rehabilitation of the site may lie with the government as the manager of Crown Land, which the saleyards remain. The entire operation will need to be signed off by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Other issues include the protection of heritage aspects of the site, including the listed 1909 administration building, adjoining sheep yards and a selling pavilion built in 1963; and the revocation of the original Queen's Caveat on the yards, which installed the site in public hands and prevents its use as anything other than a saleyards.

The Courier suggested the saleyards would be the most likely site for the village in May 2022. It also first noted the site would need to have its definitive caveat removed by an Act of Parliament over a year ago.

Minister Allan said the government had been working with the City of Ballarat for some time on the future of the saleyards, which was the source of speculation and queries for months as to whether it would be the village site.

"There has been a lot of due diligence go into understanding all of those factors and some of the challenges that go around developing a site like the saleyard and the neighborhood it sits in, in terms of its viability of being able to be turned into a an athletes' and officials' village," she said.

"A lot of that work has already been done: understanding the ground conditions, understanding the soil contamination, identifying the issues of the caveat that sits over the site and understanding the process that needs to be gone through to revoke that caveat.

"So all of these things are now understood, which means we can go into the next phase of the planning to head into procurement, with confidence about understanding the ground conditions and being able to get the village built within that 178-week time period."

In 2021 the City of Ballarat conducted a survey on what the community wanted for the saleyards site, finding the ratepayers of Ballarat were in favour of renewing the site, upgrading nearby roads, extending Gillies Street, protecting heritage, and developing public use zones.

Have you tried The Courier's app? It can be downloaded here.