Every year council publishes the projects it wants other governments to help pay for. The 2026 edition, showing a last-updated date of 2 July 2026, organises the asks around three growth areas: Gosford as the regional capital, the Woy Woy Peninsula, and the Central Lakes District running north through Warnervale towards Morisset. Some items carry council’s own cost estimate; the rest are listed as “advocacy”, meaning council wants support and has not put a public number on it.
Add up every costed item on the page and the ask comes to just over $550 million. That is our arithmetic, not council’s headline, and it excludes every uncosted advocacy item, so the true wishlist is larger.
The costed ask, by theme
Sum of council’s published cost estimates, $ million
Theme groupings follow the document’s own sections. Uncosted “advocacy” items are excluded. Full item list below.
The ten biggest costed items
| Project | Area | Council’s costing |
|---|---|---|
| Road pavement upgrade program ($20m a year over four years) | Region-wide | $80m |
| Gosford Waterfront revitalisation (public domain plan and pedestrian overpass) | Gosford | $56m |
| Gosford Olympic Pool replacement and redevelopment | Gosford | $55m |
| Gosford Waterfront to Point Clare shared pathway | Gosford | $51.6m |
| Northern Regional Leisure and Aquatic Centre (final design and implementation) | Central Lakes | $50m |
| Central Coast Regional Sporting and Recreation Complex, Stage 2 | Central Lakes | $48m |
| Coastal management: sand nourishment | Open coast | $40m |
| Sustainable Waste Regional (FOGO) | Region-wide | $35m |
| Shared pathway priority connections (Tumbi Rd, Avoca Dr, Pacific Hwy) | Region-wide | $34.66m |
| Kibble Park masterplan implementation | Gosford | $18m |
The remaining costed items: Warnervale sporting precinct ($16m), Gosford city centre road upgrades on Mann Street and Kendall Street ($12.28m), a Chain Valley Bay link road ($11.5m), shared pathway missing links ($10m), Central Coast Airport upgrades at Warnervale ($10m), a region-wide kerb, gutter and drainage program ($20m), and a Warnervale business precinct masterplan ($2.5m).
What has no price tag
The advocacy-only list is where the biggest long-term ideas sit: a High Speed Rail station for Gosford, the Gosford station and bus interchange masterplan, the Etna Street bridge, the Rawson Road railway level crossing at Woy Woy, five named state road upgrades, the Wyong to Warnervale link road, Wadalba residential expansion, and affordable housing support. The document notes the Woy Woy Peninsula is identified as a strategic centre in the Central Coast Regional Plan 2041 and the NSW Government’s Transit Oriented Development program, which is the policy engine behind much of the peninsula ask: density is coming, and the infrastructure list is council’s case for making it liveable.
What has already landed
Two federal grants from the same fortnight show what a successful ask looks like: $1.6 million from the Black Spot Program for a safety upgrade on Woy Woy Road at Kariong, and $4 million from the Urban Rivers and Catchments Program for Tuggerah Lakes restoration. Both are covered separately on this site.
Methodology
Cost figures are council’s own published estimates on the Key Enabling Projects 2026 page (Source 1), read on 3 July 2026. The $550 million total and the theme subtotals are The Coast Record’s sums of those published figures ($192.88m + $136.16m + $116.5m + $105m = $550.54m). Items marked “advocacy” carry no public costing and are excluded from all totals. The underlying document is the downloadable Key Enabling Projects 2026: Central Coast Region PDF linked from that page.