"It means the public can easily access some of the photos it holds which would otherwise sit on a shelf and gather dust."
By collaborating with the other councils a great public resource had been created that would have been otherwise unaffordable had each council tried to do the project on its own, said Mr Clarkin.
"Historic aerial imagery is incredibly important for a variety of reasons, including showing changes in land use, identifying where dangerous chemicals may have been used, showing coastline changes, and archaeology and cultural research."
He said it was also a fun tool for people to use to see what the land around them looked like decades ago. Visitors to the site can download a copy of the image for their own use.
The images on Retrolens are sourced from a parallel project which is digitising the Crown's archive of historical aerial photos to preserve them.
The website can be found at www.retrolens.nz.
