Okotoks Town Council are hoping after purchasing land near Holy Trinity Academy, that a new school and recreational facilities will be in the cards in the near future.

The town announced that they'd purchased 40 acres of land earlier this week.

Okotoks Mayor Bill Robertson says keeping up to date on schooling availabilities is key in keeping Okotoks a prosperous and growing community.

"We need more space to build schools here," he says. "The town is out of those school sites and until we annex the land, it will be awhile until we get those through municipal reserve dedication."

Currently there's a proposed site for a new Foothills School Division high school to be built near the Legacy Regional Fieldhouse but Robertson says he'd like to the schools stay within Okotoks.

"We're hoping that they will decide to move onto this site and take advantage of a school site within the Town of Okotoks," he says. "Having one of our public schools way down the road so to speak, is not the best way to promote active transportation. We're certainly hoping a high school site will be developed on this piece of land."

Robertson says having the school within distance for active transportation would eliminate the risks of having a high volume of traffic at the high school on what is always a busy highway 2A to and from school and during the lunch break.

He says with the 40 acres almost in their possession opens up a lot of new education, recreation and cultural opportunities.

"We know we have educational needs for schools, there are a number of needs that we don't have kind of nailed down at this point," he says. "The 40 acres would be were hoping for 20 acres for a high school, the extra 20 acres could be for play fields, perhaps a cultural campus, there's any number of different things that might go on to that land."