Central Coast Council tackles duplicate image problem in digital asset overhaul this week

Central Coast Council confirmed this week it has begun a structured purge of duplicate and outdated images across its digital asset library, a problem that has quietly undermined the reliability of online planning documents, development application portals and community engagement pages for at least two years. The work, part of a broader digital records remediation program tied to the council's post-administration recovery, began in earnest during the last week of June 2026.

The timing is not accidental. Council's technology and governance teams have been under pressure to modernise records management since the 2020-21 financial crisis that sent the organisation into state-appointed administration. Restoring public trust means getting the basics right — and right now, basic things like consistent, correctly labelled imagery on council documents have been failing residents who rely on the DA tracker and community project pages for accurate, up-to-date information.

What the problem looks like on the ground

The duplicate image issue has been most visible in two places: the Gosford CBD Renewal project pages hosted on the council's website, and the flood resilience planning documents covering low-lying areas around Tuggerah Lake and the Wyong River corridor. Multiple versions of the same site photographs — some dating to 2019 — have appeared alongside current consultation materials, creating confusion about whether images represented existing conditions or historical ones.

The Mann Street Gosford streetscape project, for example, had at least three sets of before-and-after images uploaded across different document versions, with inconsistent file naming meaning the council's content management system treated them as separate assets. Similar duplication was identified in materials for the Gosford Regional Library precinct and in stormwater infrastructure reports covering the Toukley and Budgewoi peninsula areas. Staff in the council's digital records unit, working out of the Wyong administration offices, have been auditing the asset library since late May.

The practical consequence for residents has been more than aesthetic. Planning applicants who downloaded supporting materials from the council portal in some cases received PDFs containing mismatched site images — a low-stakes error in isolation, but one that can complicate submissions when the images are used to assess visual impact or flooding extent. Community groups tracking the Gosford CBD renewal process also flagged the issue in feedback submitted to council in April 2026, noting that outdated aerial photographs were still appearing in project update newsletters distributed to Manning Street and Georgiana Terrace precinct contacts.

The fix and what comes next

The remediation process involves a three-stage approach: automated detection of duplicate file hashes across the content management system, manual review of flagged assets by records staff, and a standardised naming convention rollout that aligns with the NSW State Records Act requirements for local government. Council's digital team has set an internal target of completing stage one — automated detection — by 31 July 2026.

The council's asset library currently holds more than 14,000 image files accumulated since 2017, when the former Gosford City Council and Wyong Shire Council merged into the single entity. That merger, and the administration period that followed, left the digital records environment fragmented across at least four legacy systems. Rationalising that into a single, searchable library has been a stated goal since the council returned to elected governance in December 2021.

Residents and development applicants who have downloaded planning documents from the council website in the past six months are advised to re-download any materials that include photographic site assessments, particularly for properties in the Erina, Gosford and Tuggerah catchment areas, once the updated library goes live. Council's customer service centre at 2 Hely Street, Wyong, can assist with document queries in the interim. The remediation work is expected to improve load times on the DA tracker portal as a secondary benefit — duplicate files have been adding unnecessary weight to pages that many residents access on mobile connections.