Central Coast Council Tackles Duplicate Image Problem Plaguing Its Digital Asset Library This Week

Central Coast Council confirmed this week it is working through a backlog of duplicated digital images embedded across its online planning portal and corporate website, a problem that has caused incorrect photographs to appear against development applications lodged through the NSW Planning Portal for properties in suburbs including Gosford, Wyong and Tuggerah. The issue surfaced after council staff conducting a routine audit of the document management system identified hundreds of asset files carrying identical metadata tags but different content — meaning the wrong image could be served to applicants or members of the public checking their DA status.

The timing matters. Council is still rebuilding institutional credibility after emerging from state-appointed administration in 2021, and the Gosford CBD Revitalisation program — centred on Mann Street and the Kibble Park precinct — depends heavily on accurate, publicly accessible imagery to support development applications, heritage assessments and community consultation materials. Getting the wrong photo attached to a DA for a heritage-listed building on Georgiana Terrace, for example, is not a trivial clerical error; it can trigger objections, delays and, in some cases, invalidate an assessment.

What Went Wrong and Where It Showed Up

The duplicate image problem appears to stem from a 2024 migration of Council's legacy content system onto a new platform. During that migration, image files were imported multiple times under slightly different file names, creating a library where a single photograph of, say, Erina Fair or a stormwater drain on Avoca Drive might exist under four or five separate asset IDs. Council's digital team did not publicly detail the scale of the duplication this week, but the audit process itself is understood to involve the council's Geographic Information Systems unit, which maintains spatial data layers used in both the flood mapping tool on the Council website and planning certificates issued under Section 10.7 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979.

Flood mapping is the most consequential area of concern. Central Coast experienced devastating flooding in March 2021, and the council has since invested in updated hazard mapping as part of its broader climate resilience planning. If duplicate or mismatched images are embedded in publicly downloadable flood map PDFs — which residents and conveyancers routinely download before property purchases — the risk of someone acting on the wrong information is real. Council has not issued a public advisory this week stating that any flood map documents are compromised, but the audit scope includes those files.

What Council Is Doing and What Comes Next

Council's approach, as outlined in internal communications circulated to staff this week, involves a three-stage deduplication process: automated hash-matching to flag identical files, manual review of near-duplicate images where file content differs slightly, and a final reconciliation pass to re-link correct images to their associated planning records. The work is being carried out by the council's digital services team based at the Gosford administration offices on Wyong Road.

The NSW Government's Digital Information Security Policy, which applies to all local councils under the Local Government Act 1993, requires agencies to maintain accurate and retrievable records. Central Coast Council's own Digital Strategy, adopted in 2023, set a target of a fully audited digital asset register by the end of the 2025–26 financial year — which ends June 30, meaning the cleanup is technically overdue by the council's own benchmark.

Residents with active development applications, particularly those in the Gosford CBD renewal precinct or in flood-affected catchments around Tuggerah Lakes and the Wyong River corridor, should log into the NSW Planning Portal and verify that the images attached to their DA records match their actual property. Council's customer service centre on Mann Street in Gosford can cross-check records against source documents. Anyone who suspects their planning certificate contains an incorrect flood map image should request a reissued certificate in writing before using it in any property transaction. Council has not yet announced a public completion date for the full deduplication audit.