'Our history was just replaced overnight': Coventry residents speak out on duplicate image problem erasing local identity

Residents in Hillfields and Foleshill have spent the past several weeks raising concerns about what they describe as a quiet but damaging trend: authentic photographs documenting their streets, community events and local landmarks being replaced, without notice, by generic stock images on council websites, regeneration project pages and community-facing digital platforms. The substitutions, referred to in web management circles as duplicate image replacement, occur when administrators swap older or duplicated image files for standardised stock photographs — but critics say the process is stripping communities of documented visual history.

The issue has surfaced sharply in recent weeks as Coventry City Council's ongoing digital estate review, which began in January 2026, has prompted updates across dozens of public-facing web pages. Several residents noticed the changes first on pages linked to the Coventry Heritage and Communities Gateway, a digital archive launched in 2023 that was meant to preserve photographic records of the city's diverse neighbourhoods.

What residents say they have lost

The frustration is specific. A long-time member of the Foleshill Community Partnership described attending a meeting in late June at the Foleshill Resource Centre on Foleshill Road where residents brought printed screenshots showing before-and-after comparisons. Original photographs — images of the Diwali lights on Stoney Stanton Road, community meals held at the Coventry Muslim Resource Centre on Sparkhill Close, and a commemorative mural near the Belgrade Theatre — had been replaced by generic photographs of unnamed city streets that bore no resemblance to Coventry.

The Hillfields History Group, which has been active in the neighbourhood since 2011, has logged at least 34 instances since April 2026 where photographs it contributed to public-facing council pages were replaced by stock imagery sourced from third-party licensing libraries. The group's volunteer coordinator wrote a formal letter to the council's Digital Services team on 14 May 2026, requesting an explanation and a rollback of the changes. As of this week, no written response had been received, according to members of the group who spoke to The Daily Coventry.

One resident from the Hillfields area, who has lived on Harnall Lane East for more than 20 years, said the replacement of a photograph showing a 2019 street festival had felt dismissive. She said neighbours felt that decisions about what counted as acceptable visual content for their community were being made by people who had never visited the area.

The broader stakes for Coventry's digital record

This matters beyond hurt feelings. Coventry holds UK City of Culture status and built much of its 2021 programme around the argument that genuine community representation — including visual documentation — matters to civic life. The city's Culture Trust, which was awarded £10.8 million in Arts Council England funding as part of the City of Culture programme, emphasised participatory photography projects as core deliverables. Residents argue that allowing stock images to quietly overwrite that archive undermines commitments the city made publicly only a few years ago.

Coventry City Council's current digital strategy, published in March 2025, includes a stated commitment to accessible, community-representative content across all public digital platforms. A council spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

The Coventry Older Voices group, based at the Elm Bank centre in Charter Avenue, has also raised the issue separately, noting that several photographs connected to its oral history project — which began in September 2022 — had disappeared from a dedicated project page maintained on the council's Let's Talk Coventry engagement platform.

For affected residents, the practical path forward starts with documentation. The Hillfields History Group is asking anyone who spots a replaced image to take a screenshot, note the URL and the date, and send it to the group's email address, which is listed on its Facebook page. The group intends to compile a full register and present it to the council's Communities and Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Board, which is scheduled to meet again on 21 July 2026. Several residents said they planned to attend in person.