Council's Image Audit Forces Hard Choices: What Happens Next for Central Coast's Property Records

Central Coast Council has confirmed it is working through a staged replacement program after an internal audit identified a substantial number of duplicate and incorrectly assigned images across its property information systems — a problem that affects everything from development application portals to the publicly accessible building records database used by conveyancers, real estate agents and prospective buyers across the region.

The timing matters. Council only emerged from state administration in 2021 after a financial crisis that left it with a $565 million debt burden and forced deep cuts across multiple service areas. Rebuilding digital infrastructure was flagged in the Council's recovery plan as a medium-term priority, but the image audit result has pushed the timeline forward. With Gosford CBD renewal projects generating a surge in DA lodgements — including several mixed-use towers along Mann Street and the former Gosford RSL precinct on Dane Drive — accurate, correctly filed property documentation is no longer optional.

What Went Wrong and How Big Is the Problem

The duplicate image issue is not unique to the Central Coast. Councils across New South Wales have grappled with legacy data migration problems dating back to software transitions in the mid-2010s, when many local governments shifted to the Technology One property management platform. On the Central Coast, the problem was compounded by the 2016 amalgamation of the former Gosford City Council and Wyong Shire Council into a single entity, which required merging two separate image libraries and property record systems. Files were bulk-imported rather than individually verified, and some property addresses — particularly in dual-suburb boundary zones around Tuggerah, Wyong and parts of the Entrance Road corridor — ended up with images drawn from the wrong parcel.

Council has not publicly released a total count of affected records. However, property professionals operating in the region have noted recurring problems when accessing the NSW Planning Portal for sites in the Shelly Beach Road precinct at Shelly Beach and around the Empire Bay Drive corridor in Kincumber. In both areas, site photographs attached to historical DAs have not matched the street address listed on the application.

The NSW Government's own benchmarking data, published in the 2024-25 Local Government Performance Monitoring Framework, showed Central Coast Council rated below the state median on digital service delivery indicators — a metric that encompasses data accuracy and portal functionality. Council's integrated planning documents list digital asset integrity as a deliverable under its 2025-2028 Delivery Program.

Key Decisions Ahead for Ratepayers and Developers

Council officers are understood to be assessing two main options: a manual verification program that would task existing staff with checking and replacing images record by record, or a contracted bulk-remediation process using a specialist data services firm. The manual route is slower but keeps costs internal. The contracted route could be completed faster — industry estimates for comparable council data projects in regional NSW have ranged from $180,000 to upward of $400,000 depending on record volume — but would require a Council resolution and budget allocation.

For people with active development applications, the practical advice from planning practitioners is to attach high-resolution, geotagged photographs directly to every DA lodgement rather than relying on images already held in the Council system. The NSW Planning Portal allows applicants to upload their own site photographs as supporting documents, and doing so creates a verifiable record independent of whatever the backend library holds.

Real estate agents working the Gosford and Erina markets have said the problem rarely derails a sale but does create extra work during pre-purchase due diligence, particularly for off-the-plan purchases where buyers are relying entirely on digital records rather than a physical inspection of an existing structure.

Council's next ordinary meeting is scheduled for July 28 at the Wyong office on Hely Street. The digital systems report is expected to appear on the agenda, and that meeting will likely determine whether the remediation goes to tender before the end of the 2026 calendar year — or gets deferred again while the Gosford CBD build-out consumes the majority of Council's planning and administrative resources.