Central Coast Council's Property Image Audit Flags Hundreds of Duplicate Files Across Planning Portal

Central Coast Council this week confirmed it is moving to resolve a backlog of duplicate digital images embedded across its public-facing planning portal, after an internal audit identified inconsistencies in how project photos and site imagery have been catalogued since the council emerged from state administration in late 2021. The problem has been most visible in the Gosford CBD urban renewal precinct, where hundreds of site photographs taken across multiple contractor visits were uploaded under different file names but show identical or near-identical content.

The timing matters. Council is currently processing a significant volume of development applications tied to the Gosford Waterfront revitalisation and the broader Gosford Regional City Action Plan, which covers roughly 13 hectares between Mann Street and the Gosford train station. Duplicated imagery in planning documents can slow assessment timelines, inflate storage costs, and — in some cases — create confusion about whether a site photograph represents current or superseded conditions.

What the Audit Found

The review, conducted by council's Digital and Customer Experience team over the four weeks to June 27, examined the asset library supporting the council's DA tracking system and the Central Coast Development Hub. According to council's published agenda papers for its June 24 ordinary meeting, the organisation is partway through a broader digital systems consolidation that began after the appointment of interim administrators in October 2020. The image duplication issue surfaced as a downstream consequence of migrating records from the former Gosford City Council and Wyong Shire Council systems — two separate organisations that merged in 2016 but whose digital archives were never fully reconciled.

Officers identified affected folders linked to projects along Donnison Street in Gosford, several sites within the Karlkutta development precinct near Woy Woy, and a number of files associated with Central Coast Stadium's infrastructure upgrade documentation. No planning decisions are understood to have been delayed as a direct result, but the audit flagged that some public-facing gallery pages on the council website had been displaying the same photograph multiple times, giving residents an incomplete picture of project progress.

Practical Steps and What Comes Next

Council's ICT team began replacing flagged duplicate images with correctly dated, uniquely referenced files on July 1. The rollout is expected to cover the highest-traffic sections of the planning portal — primarily the Gosford City Centre and Wyong Town Centre project pages — by the end of July, with the full library to be audited by September 30, 2026.

The council is using a deduplication protocol aligned with the NSW State Archives and Records Authority's digital recordkeeping standards, which require local government bodies to maintain a single authoritative version of each document or asset in their official systems. Storage savings from removing verified duplicates in a comparable mid-sized NSW council audit — conducted by Maitland City Council in 2024 — ran to roughly 1.4 terabytes across planning and infrastructure folders, according to that council's published annual report.

For residents and developers submitting applications through the Central Coast Development Hub, the practical advice from council officers is straightforward: any DA lodged after July 1 will draw on the refreshed image library, so supporting documents that reference council site photographs should be verified against the updated portal rather than cached browser versions. Applicants with active DAs in the Gosford CBD precinct — particularly those near the proposed fast-rail corridor alignment running south toward Tuggerah and ultimately Sydney — are encouraged to contact the Gosford Customer Service Centre on Mann Street directly to confirm whether any reference imagery in their files has been updated.

The broader significance sits within the council's ongoing effort to rebuild institutional credibility after its period under administration. Getting the digital infrastructure right, even at the unglamorous level of file management, feeds directly into the transparency the council has pledged as it manages one of the largest urban renewal agendas on the NSW coast.