- Capital works, 2026-27$348.9m
- Contingency line$22.0m
- Share of the program6.3%
- Projects deferred to fund it12
- Those projects, added up$21,963,300
The reason matters because it is unusual. A local council in New South Wales has written an overseas conflict into its capital budget as a named risk, and paid for the hedge out of local projects rather than by borrowing or raising the program.
What the plan says, in its own words
The contingency exists To manage potential cost increases and supply chain impacts linked
to the Middle East conflict
. It is roughly $22 million inside the 2026-27 capital works
program, and the plan is explicit that the money did not come from anywhere new:
This has been funded by temporarily deferring a small number of projects into a
“Projects & Programs Pending” category, rather than increasing the overall
capital budget
.
How the twelve were chosen is also set out. Projects were reviewed using a structured,
risk-based approach
, with Priority was given to maintaining funding for projects that are
critical for safety, compliance, service delivery, and externally funded commitments
. The
ones that moved are those that can be rephased with the least impact to the community and
Council operations
.
Once set aside, the money is not tied to any particular project. It
will operate as a single pool of funding that can be used if projects experience cost
increases due to the Middle East crisis during the year
.
The twelve, and what happens to them
Twelve projects have been placed in the pending category
, and their fate is
conditional in a way worth reading carefully. If the contingency is not fully required,
these projects may be brought back into the 2026-27 program where timing and resources
allow
. But If the contingency is fully utilised, these projects will be deferred to
2027-28, with flow-on adjustments to future years of the infrastructure pipeline
. Either
way, Early planning work on these projects will continue so projects are ready to proceed if
funding becomes available
.
| Project | Suburb | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Sewage Treatment Plant, major augmentation works | Charmhaven | $8,000,000 |
| Intersection upgrade, Ocean Beach and Rawson Rd | Woy Woy | $2,400,000 |
| Regional Animal Care Facility construction | Region Wide | $2,000,000 |
| Drainage upgrade, Avoca Drive | Avoca Beach | $1,909,000 |
| Wyong Administration Building B, level 3 and 4 internal fitout renewal | Wyong | $1,650,000 |
| Little Wobby Wharf replacement | Little Wobby | $1,550,000 |
| Boardwalk renewal, Marine Parade | Long Jetty | $1,250,000 |
| Wyong Administration Building C, workspace renewal | Wyong | $1,000,000 |
| Wyong Administration Building D, workspace renewal | Wyong | $1,000,000 |
| Transport and Access Management Program, Gosford City Centre | Gosford | $851,300 |
| Road upgrade, Mann Street | Gosford | $200,000 |
| Road upgrade, Kendall Street and Holden Street | Gosford | $153,000 |
| Total | $21,963,300 |
The arithmetic that shows where the money went
This is our own calculation rather than a statement the plan makes, and it is the part that tells you the pending list really is the source of the contingency.
The plan breaks the $22 million contingency down by where the money comes from: $8.0 million from restricted funds and $14.0 million from general fund general revenue. Restricted funds are money that can only be spent for the purpose it was collected for, which for a council includes water and sewer charges.
Now look at the twelve. The single largest is the Charmhaven sewage treatment plant augmentation at exactly $8,000,000, a sewer project, and sewer money is restricted. The remaining eleven add up to $13,963,300, which is $14.0 million to the nearest hundred thousand. The contingency’s two funding lines match the pending list almost to the dollar, split the same way.
That correspondence answers the question the tables raise on their own. The pending amounts are not whole project budgets: the Charmhaven plant still carries $40.2 million in the capital table for 2026-27, and the Woy Woy intersection still carries $8.7 million. The pending figure is the slice of each project’s year that has been pulled into the contingency pool.
What this does and does not mean for a project near you
It does not mean these twelve are cancelled, and it does not mean work stops. The plan says planning continues and that they may return to this year’s program if the money is not needed. What it does mean is that a portion of each one’s funding this year is now contingent on construction costs elsewhere in the program, and the outcome will be visible before the projects are.
Where it becomes visible is named in the plan too: changes to the program-level budget
will be reported to Council through the Quarterly Budget Review and Adjustment process
.
That is the document to watch, and we will.
How we did this
Read from the adopted Delivery Program 2025-29 and Operational Plan 2026-27, the 152 page PDF published by Central Coast Council, downloaded and read on 24 August 2026. Every quoted passage above is verbatim from that document. The twelve project names, suburbs and amounts come from the plan’s own table headed Pending Projects and Programs (PP*), whose stated subtotal of $21,963,300 the twelve line items sum to exactly, which we checked.
The funding-source comparison in the section above is our arithmetic, not the council’s claim. The plan states the contingency split of $8.0 million restricted and $14.0 million general revenue in its works program by expenditure type table, and separately lists the twelve pending amounts; setting the two side by side is our own step, and we have labelled it as such. We have not asked the council to confirm that reading, and there may be an accounting reason for the match that we cannot see from the document.
Our earlier story on the adopted budget, published 3 July, described this line as holding $22 million back to manage cost fluctuations, which is what the council’s media release said. Nothing in that story was wrong; the adopted instrument is simply more specific than the release, which is why we went and read it. Figures are subject to rounding, as the plan notes.