Central Coast Council's Image Audit Flags Hundreds of Duplicate and Outdated Photos Across Digital Assets

Central Coast Council this week began the replacement phase of a months-long audit of digital imagery used across its online planning portal, community engagement pages, and internal documents — a project that staff have been quietly working through since the council's return to elected representation in late 2022 following its period of administration.

The review matters now because the council is mid-stream on several high-visibility projects, including the Gosford CBD revitalisation program and updated flood-risk mapping for low-lying suburbs around Tuggerah Lake. Duplicate or outdated aerial photographs embedded in publicly available planning documents can create real confusion for residents, developers, and community groups trying to understand what approvals apply to which sites.

What the Audit Found

The audit, carried out by the council's Information and Digital Services unit, identified imagery problems across multiple areas of the council's digital footprint. Aerial shots of the Gosford waterfront precinct — key to current rezoning discussions along Mann Street and the Leagues Club site — were found duplicated across at least three separate development-related web pages, some carrying metadata timestamps from before 2019. Photographs used in the council's community consultation pages for the Wyong Town Centre activation project were similarly flagged, with several images showing construction hoardings that were removed years ago.

The Entrance Road corridor, which has been the subject of active traffic and pedestrian safety discussions in 2025 and 2026, also appeared in the audit as an area where street-level imagery no longer reflected current conditions. A roundabout upgrade completed near Tuggerah in the 2024–25 financial year had not been reflected in any of the photographs attached to the council's transport planning summary pages.

Council's digital team has been working through a priority list, starting with assets linked to live Development Applications and moving outward to general community-information pages. The Mann Street and Donnison Street precincts in Gosford, both central to the CBD renewal ambitions that have dominated council debate for the past three years, were listed in the first tranche of replacements completed this week.

Why Outdated Images Create Practical Problems

For residents and small business owners navigating the DA process, the presence of duplicate or stale imagery is more than a cosmetic issue. Planning documents that show an incorrect site photograph — or the same photograph applied to two different lots — can trigger requests for clarification from council assessors, adding weeks to assessment timelines. The council's DA processing backlog has been a persistent concern since administration ended; the average residential DA in the 2024–25 annual report took longer than the state benchmark to determine, a figure the current elected council has committed to improving.

Property professionals working on developments near Terrigal Drive in Erina, and along the Pacific Highway corridor through Tuggerah and Wyong, have raised the imagery issue informally at council business engagement sessions held earlier this year. Those sessions, run through the council's Economic Development team, drew attendees from the local construction and real estate sectors who flagged inconsistencies they had noticed while preparing development applications.

The council has not published a formal timetable for completing all image replacements across its full digital asset library, but the Information and Digital Services unit indicated in a council briefing paper circulated to elected members in June 2026 that high-priority planning and engagement pages would be updated before the end of the September 2026 quarter.

Residents who spot outdated or duplicated images on council planning pages can report them through the council's website feedback function or by contacting the Customer Service centre at 150 Mann Street, Gosford. Anyone who has submitted a DA in the past 12 months and believes an incorrect site photograph may have been attached to their application is advised to contact their assigned assessment planner directly to confirm the correct imagery is on file before their application moves to determination.