All stories
The front page and the section pages show what is current. This page lists everything we have published, so a story stays findable after it stops being news.
News
The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council now expects the National Housing Accord's 1.2 million homes to be reached in the December quarter of 2030, a quarter later than it said in April. Approvals are up 26 per cent, commencements up 15 and slowing, and a Senate committee on intergenerational housing inequity reports on 30 September.
Community
From Friday 21 August 2026 Lake Haven Library shuts at 2pm on Fridays, for up to six months. Central Coast Council says it is a precautionary response to repeated anti-social behaviour in and around the library precinct, after several years of trying to manage the risk while keeping the doors open.
News
New ABS data to 30 June 2025: Central Coast Council has 81,492 residents aged 65 and over, the most of any council in New South Wales and more than Canterbury-Bankstown or Blacktown. By share it ranks 56th of 128, and it has fallen 42 places since 2001.
Council
The Office of Local Government received 83 complaints about Central Coast Council in 2024-25, up from 48, the first rise since the 256 recorded in 2020-21. Complaints rose across NSW too. What the Central Coast's differ about.
Council money
Central Coast Council's capital works update to the 11 August Infrastructure and Assets Committee records $206,137,936 spent against a forecast phased budget of $237,001,047 at 31 May 2026, 87 per cent against a 90 per cent target, and says end of June is expected to meet it. The same report names international events, supply chain impacts and the May councillor workshop that resolved to create the contingency fund we reported in August.
Council
IPART capped Central Coast Council's rates income at a final peg of 3.2 per cent for 2026-27. We read the adopted Fees and Charges schedule and the one before it, 132 and 136 pages, and matched 684 individual fees across the two years. The median rise is 5.20 per cent, with most of the schedule moving by exactly that. The rate peg does not apply to fees, and this is what that means in practice.
Council money
The adopted Delivery Program names the line item Middle East Conflict - Cost Impacts Contingency, $22 million, 6.3 per cent of the capital works program. It was funded from inside the program by deferring twelve named projects. The plan's own funding split matches those twelve exactly.
Council
Central Coast Council meets on Tuesday 25 August. The agenda published on Friday carries 41 substantive items, including two motions to rescind decisions taken four weeks ago: one on standing committee delegations, one on the Gosford Coming Alive 2040 endorsement.
Community
Central Coast Council reported action by action on the final year of its 2021-2025 disability plan, in the statutory pages of a 300-page annual report. The council page that lists DIAP progress reports still stops at December 2023, and offers a 2018-19 annual report extract as the other one.
Community
Central Coast Council adopted its Disability Inclusion Action Plan 2026-2030 on 26 May, five weeks before the state deadline. We read all 52 actions, the local data behind them, and what the plan will and will not tell you in four years.
Council
The Central Coast Local Planning Panel meets online on Thursday 20 August to decide three development applications: a dual occupancy at Woy Woy, alterations and a pool at Avoca Beach, and a two-lot subdivision at Ettalong Beach. The agenda lists a clause 4.6 variation document against every one of them. It has been opened 33 times.
Council
Council opened the new Blue Lagoon Beach stairs on 14 August. We downloaded three years of Crown Reserves Improvement Fund records and added up every grant that landed in the Central Coast LGA: $2,017,745 across eight projects, and a take that swings from 5.5 per cent of the state pool to 0.3 per cent and back to 9.5 per cent.
Council
Central Coast Council's draft Regulatory Priorities Statement 2026-29 names five compliance priorities a year for three years: unhealthy land and Gosford CBD parking this year, unauthorised coastal works next, illegal dumping in 2028-29. Submissions closed Friday 21 August 2026.
Council
Central Coast Council's adopted Long Term Financial Plan 2026-27 to 2035-36 names a preferred scenario for the first time, and it assumes the council will seek a permanent special rate variation of $31 million from 2031-32 to replace the temporary one that expires. Without it, the council's own base case has unrestricted cash at minus $405 million by 2035-36.
Development
Central Coast Council's Accelerated Development Application pathway is entered through a free pre-lodgement review called Accelerated Lodgement Ready. The council's own page says you have one opportunity to be accepted, and an application short of the minimum documentation goes back to the standard pathway. Review letter in 5 to 10 days, determination generally 10 to 25 days after lodgement.
Council
Central Coast Council asked a deliberative panel and 189 survey respondents to rank six water and sewer service values. The two rankings are identical except for one swap: the broad survey put affordability second and reliability third, the panel the other way round. On sewer, both groups agreed and put reliability above cost. The engagement feeds Council's submissions to IPART.
Growth + transport
Central Coast Council has secured $183,231 to progress a Special Entertainment Precinct in Gosford, running from the University of Newcastle building to Drifters Wharf. A precinct lets a council set its own sound conditions and trading hours, overriding standard development consent and licence conditions. More than 800 people gave early feedback and 89 per cent backed a trial.
Council
At the extraordinary meeting on 28 July Central Coast Council appointed Jamie Loader as Acting Chief Executive Officer and set up a seven-member recruitment panel with delegated authority: six councillors and one independent, Kath Roach of SINC Solutions. The permanent appointment still needs a full council resolution.
Council
David Farmer became Central Coast Council's chief executive in April 2021 with the council under administration after its financial collapse. He retires on 2 September, and an extraordinary meeting on 28 July 2026 appointed an internal acting CEO and began recruiting a permanent one. He leaves a council that rebuilt its finances and is now re-tooling to chase major projects, which is what makes the timing matter.
Development
On 17 June 2026 the NSW Government committed $41 million to help commence the Gosford waterfront revitalisation and a Point Clare active-transport link. An explainer on where the transformation stands, what the money does, and what is still just advocacy.
Development
On 28 July the Central Coast Council is asked to endorse Gosford Coming Alive 2040, a framework for renewing the city centre and waterfront around the planned high-speed rail station. It names four partnership projects and dozens more and stands up a Mayor-led taskforce. On a first-hand reading of the business paper, it contains no dollar figure and no numeric housing, jobs or population target.
Environment
Central Coast Council has lodged a section 68 authorisation application with the NSW Reconstruction Authority for sand nourishment and a sloping rock revetment at Wamberal Beach. It runs alongside the three development applications still before the regional planning panel, on a track that can authorise the works without the usual planning assessment or any owner's consent.
Cost of living
The Central Coast is first in NSW to get Smart Rental Bonds from August: an optional scheme that lets renters transfer an existing bond to their next place through Rental Bonds Online instead of finding a second bond upfront. How it works, who qualifies, and why the Coast is first.
Coast + community
Central Coast Council has put a draft Swift Parrot Species Management Plan on public exhibition from 13 July to 10 August 2026. Submissions have closed and Council is reviewing the feedback. The bird is endangered in NSW and critically endangered nationally, and this winter at least 40 gathered in Bateau Bay backyards. The plan is Council's attempt to protect its habitat while the region keeps growing.
Community
Central Coast Council is compiling an 'Accessible Venues' brochure of entertainment, leisure and cultural places that offer genuinely accessible and inclusive experiences, so people with disability can plan ahead. Venue operators could apply to be featured until 27 July 2026; that round has now closed. What it covers, and the disability-inclusion duty it sits inside.
Development
Central Coast Council's new Accelerated Development Application process fast-tracks well-prepared, eligible DAs from 1 July 2026. The backlog it inherits has fallen from a peak of 1,099 outstanding applications to 652, and year-plus legacy cases are at their lowest since October 2022.
Transport
Transport for NSW field crews start work on Terrigal Drive between Chetwynd Road and Serpentine Road at Erina from 20 July, for about two months. Expect lane closures, reduced speed limits, footpath closures and detours while the upgrade, backed by $115 million in federal funding and $108.2 million in the NSW Budget, is scoped.
Education
Construction is well advanced on the fee-free public preschool at Tuggerawong Public School, with room for up to 40 children a day. It is one of two on the Central Coast under the NSW Government's $769 million, 100-preschool program; the other is at Umina Beach Public School.
Health
Where to go on the Central Coast when it is urgent but not life-threatening: the Medicare Urgent Care Clinics at Lake Haven, Umina Beach and Erina Fair, all walk-in and bulk billed, plus the free Medicare Mental Health Kids Hub at Tuggerah, no referral needed.
Development
Twelve social and nine affordable homes are going up on Macleay Avenue, Woy Woy, delivered by Pacific Link Housing and built by Skope Constructions. The project is financed by loans from the federal Housing Australia Future Fund and a NSW Government grant, with completion scheduled for August 2027.
Community
Frost Reserve's skatepark is growing from 200 to 750 square metres, with quarter pipes, rails, a covered spectator area and a design shaped by local riders in 2025 workshops. Fully council-funded, targeted for completion by October 2026.
Council money
Central Coast Council's adopted 2026-27 budget names the roads, sewer works, ovals and town centres getting money this year, adds $38 million for local priorities, and holds a $22 million contingency.
Development
Central Coast Council's Key Enabling Projects 2026 document, updated this week, prices its funding asks for Gosford, Woy Woy and the northern corridor. We list every costed item and what's already landed.
Council money
From 1 July 2026 the stormwater drainage charge moves off Central Coast water bills and onto general rates notices. IPART approved the transfer; council says the move itself doesn't change what you pay.
Community
Terrigal Surf Life Saving Club marked what it calls its 100th year with back-to-back Club of the Year awards, 852 members, 7,059 patrol hours and zero drowning deaths during volunteer patrols.
Environment
A $4 million federal grant will fund seven restoration projects across the Tuggerah Lakes estuary over two years, from saltmarsh repair to boat-based litter collection. Here is what each one does, and where.
Environment
The NSW Government has certified council's Open Coast Coastal Management Program, locking in sand nourishment over a buried rock revetment as the preferred fix for Wamberal Beach and opening the door to state and federal grants.
Data
Council's own population forecast has the Central Coast growing from 348,378 to 412,502 by 2046, and one district, Warnervale-Wallarah-Bushells Ridge, taking a quarter of the entire increase.
Transport
Federal Black Spot funding will pay for a centre median barrier and high-friction pavement on about a kilometre of Woy Woy Road south of Staples Lookout, a stretch carrying around 20,000 vehicles a day.