The design of the High River Aquatic Facility expansion has some people alarmed, specifically the design of the change rooms.

Mayor Craig Snodgrass says the work the committee has been doing over the last year with the architect involves looking at ways to save money.

"The work that the committee's been doing, and these are public members and user groups along with council members and administration the work that we've been doing over the past year with our architects, we've got a tight budget on this project that we want to stick to and one area where we can save is on the design of the change rooms," he says.

"Where the design is going right now is to go with one single, locker room, that has individual change rooms inside it. Where the confusion is, there are some people who think this is a wide-open change facility and everybody's naked in there and everybody sees everybody and that is absolutely not what this design is."

He says there would be individual fully enclosed stalls with locks on the doors so no one would be able to see anyone else.

Once a patron has changed, they would either go to the pool or out to the lobby.

Lisa Szabon-Smith came to the council's Committee of the Whole meeting to represent a group that still believes in a traditional male and female change room.

Snodgrass says he understands that, but the Town and the committee are trying to do the project as efficiently and as cost effective as possible.

Szabon-Smith has accepted a seat on the Aquatic Centre committee to bring those views forward. in future discussions.

The mayor says it's still a long time before shovels go in the ground and there's still time to figure out the best way to build the expansion while staying within budget.

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