Duplicate Images Plaguing Central Coast Council Records: What Officials and Experts Are Saying

Central Coast Council is facing mounting pressure over duplicate and incorrectly matched images embedded in planning and property records, with property owners along Mann Street in Gosford and in suburbs including Woy Woy and Wyong reporting that development applications and heritage assessments have referenced wrong site photographs. The problem, while bureaucratic in nature, carries real consequences — wrong images attached to DA files can delay approvals, trigger incorrect heritage flags, and cost applicants thousands of dollars in resubmission fees.

The timing is awkward for a Council still rebuilding credibility after emerging from state-imposed administration in 2021. Any sign of systemic data-quality failures tends to draw outsized scrutiny, and this issue is no exception. Several property owners who contacted The Daily Central Coast this week described receiving assessment notices that cited photographs clearly taken at a different address.

Why the Problem Is Surfacing Now

Council's ongoing digitisation of legacy paper records — a project connected to its broader IT overhaul following the administration period — appears to be the proximate cause. When physical files were scanned and migrated into the current records management system, image files were not always systematically linked to their correct property identifier. The Gosford CBD renewal precinct, where dozens of sites are simultaneously active in the planning pipeline, has concentrated the problem in one geographic area.

Records and information management specialists have noted publicly that image-deduplication and correct asset tagging are among the most labour-intensive steps in any large-scale document migration. The Australian Library and Information Association, in guidance published in 2024, identified image misattribution as one of the top five data-integrity risks in local government digitisation projects. Getting it wrong at the migration stage typically means errors propagate across every subsequent system that draws on the original records.

The Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council, which holds an interest in several parcels under assessment in the Gosford and Wyong corridors, has flagged through community forums that inaccurate site imagery could affect cultural heritage assessments — a concern with legal weight under the NSW Heritage Act 1977 and the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983. Specific affected sites have not been publicly identified by the Land Council, but the concern itself adds urgency to Council's response timeline.

What Council and Outside Experts Are Recommending

Council has not yet issued a formal statement on the scope of affected records, though a spokesperson acknowledged to this masthead that a review of image attachments in the electronic DA system was underway. No completion date has been publicly committed to.

Urban planning consultants operating out of Gosford's Central Coast Mariners Centre of Excellence precinct — which has become an informal hub for council-adjacent professional services since its redevelopment — suggest the fix is less technically complex than it is resource-intensive. Each record requires human review. Automated deduplication tools can flag probable matches, but a trained officer must confirm the correct image before any file is updated.

For residents and developers with active applications, the practical advice from planning professionals is straightforward: request a copy of your DA file under the Government Information (Public Access) Act and check that every image attached actually shows your property. If you identify a mismatch, lodge a written correction request directly with Council's Development and Environment division at 2 Hely Street, Wyong, referencing your DA number and the specific document page. Keep dated copies of all correspondence.

The NSW Department of Planning has not publicly commented on whether it intends to audit Council's image records as part of its ongoing monitoring of the post-administration recovery. Central Coast Council remains under a performance improvement framework, and data integrity sits within the scope of that oversight.

With Gosford CBD development approvals running at elevated volume and the state government's housing targets adding pressure to turn applications around quickly, Council has limited runway to treat this as a slow-burn administrative tidy-up. Property owners with stalled applications are unlikely to be patient.