Central Coast Council Tackles Duplicate Image Problem Plaguing Digital Asset Library

Central Coast Council confirmed this week it is actively cleaning up a backlog of duplicate images embedded across its digital asset management system — a technical problem that has slowed planning application processing at Gosford and caused repeated errors in community-facing publications since at least 2024.

The issue matters now because the council, still rebuilding institutional capacity after emerging from state-imposed administration in 2021, has staked much of its digital transformation agenda on a functioning asset library. Duplicate images — some uploaded multiple times across different departmental folders, others mislabelled during a data migration — have been generating incorrect attachments in development assessment documents lodged through the NSW Planning Portal, according to procedural records published on the council's website.

Where the Problem Shows Up

The duplication headache has been most visible in two areas. Planning officers processing applications in the Gosford CBD renewal precinct — particularly along Mann Street and Baker Street, where several mixed-use rezoning proposals are active — reported attaching the wrong site photographs to assessment reports. Separately, the council's communications team found duplicated images appearing in the Central Coast Local Infrastructure Contributions Plan documentation, creating version-control confusion for developers and their consultants.

The council's Enterprise Content Management project, which began its current phase in March 2025, is the vehicle being used to address the problem. Under that program, staff across the Gosford and Wyong administration centres are working through a staged deduplication process, flagging images for either archival or deletion before a broader system upgrade scheduled for the third quarter of 2026.

The Gosford CBD renewal work is particularly sensitive to these errors. With several development applications under assessment along the waterfront precinct near Kibble Park, any misfiled or duplicated site photograph attached to a public exhibition document can trigger formal objection periods to restart — adding weeks to already lengthy approval timelines.

Scale and What Is Being Done

The council has not released a full public count of affected files, but internal procedural notes published to the council's governance portal in June 2026 reference a remediation list spanning multiple asset folders created between 2019 and 2023. That window covers the administration period overseen by interim administrator Rik Hart, when rapid digitisation of paper records created the conditions for the duplicate problem to emerge.

Staff have been allocated dedicated remediation hours each Tuesday and Thursday through July, according to the published project schedule. A quality-assurance check is built into the process: each image flagged for deletion must be cross-referenced against at least two other departmental registers before it is permanently removed. The council says this is designed to prevent accidental loss of legally required development records.

For residents and developers, the practical effect is that some planning documents accessible via the NSW Planning Portal may show temporary gaps where images have been removed but replacements have not yet been uploaded. The council's Development and Environment directorate has advised applicants to contact the Gosford customer service counter at 2 Hely Street if they notice missing attachments on active applications.

The broader context is hard to ignore. Sydney recorded its hottest June in more than 160 years this week, and the Central Coast — already deep in flood and climate-resilience planning for low-lying areas around Tuggerah Lakes and the Hawkesbury-Nepean fringe — generates large volumes of environmental site photography that feeds directly into this same asset library. Getting the digital infrastructure right before the next round of climate-related planning documents goes out for public exhibition is not an abstract concern for council staff.

The deduplication program is expected to complete its first full pass by 31 August 2026, with a final audit report going to the council's audit and risk committee in September. Residents following active development applications near Gosford, Wyong, or Tuggerah are advised to check the NSW Planning Portal regularly and report any document anomalies directly to the council's planning helpline.