- Central Coast, 2021348,378
- Central Coast, 2046 forecast412,502
- People added+64,124
- Share landing in one district24.5%
- That district, 20211,080
- That district, 204616,787
The numbers come from forecast.id, the small-area population forecast commissioned by Central Coast Council and built on ABS population estimates. Its current series runs 2021 to 2046 and covers 41 forecast districts. Read as a whole, it says the Coast grows from 348,378 people to 412,502, an increase of 64,124, averaging 0.68 per cent a year. Read district by district, it says almost all of that change is happening in a handful of places.
The standout is the district the forecast calls Warnervale - Wallarah - Bushells Ridge: 1,080 residents in 2021, 16,787 by 2046. That single district absorbs 15,707 new residents, 24.5 per cent of the entire region’s forecast growth, growing at an average 11.6 per cent a year while the region averages under one.
Where the next 64,124 people go
Forecast population change by district, 2021 to 2046, top eight by people added
District names are forecast.id’s own labels. Source: forecast.id population summary for Central Coast Council, read 3 July 2026.
Two Coasts in one forecast
Group the five corridor districts between Tuggerah and the Wallarah paddocks (Warnervale - Wallarah - Bushells Ridge, Wadalba, Woongarah, Hamlyn Terrace and Tuggerah - Mardi) and the corridor takes 30,365 of the 64,124 new residents, 47 per cent of the region’s growth. Add Lake Munmorah - Chain Valley Bay and the northern share passes half. Gosford - West Gosford is the other hotspot, forecast to double from 6,508 to 13,041 as the city centre’s renewal projects add apartments.
The rest of the map barely moves. The forecast has Gorokan (-66), Long Jetty - Shelly Beach - Toowoon Bay - Blue Bay (-26), Kincumber (-4) and Ourimbah - Palmdale - Kangy Angy (-4) ending 2046 with slightly fewer people than 2021. Woy Woy - Blackwall adds just 155 people in 25 years and Ettalong Beach - Booker Bay 93, which sits oddly beside the state government flagging the Woy Woy Peninsula for Transit Oriented Development; if peninsula density arrives, a future forecast revision will have to catch up with it.
Why this table explains the others
Almost every spending decision covered on this site traces back to this shape of growth: the $40.2 million Charmhaven sewage treatment works in the adopted budget, the Warnervale sporting precinct and Northern Regional Aquatic Centre on the funding wishlist, and the Mardi facilities under construction. Sewer plants and sports fields follow rooftops, and the rooftops are going north.
Methodology
All figures are from the forecast.id population summary table for Central Coast Council (Source 1), 2021 base year to 2046 horizon, read on 3 July 2026. These are forecasts built on ABS Estimated Resident Population data and land-supply assumptions, not census counts, and .id revises them periodically. Percentages and the corridor grouping are The Coast Record’s arithmetic on the published table; district labels (including the spelling Woongarah) are .id’s own. Earlier editions of this table used a 2016 to 2036 series with different figures; this story uses only the current published series.