The issue became a heated talking point at last week's Council planning meeting, with a majority of councillors moving a motion that Council hold off moving to the procurement phase of the new CBD upgrades to finalise Council's budget for the project.

Stage two of Council's CBD revitalisation program follows on from the multi-million dollar upgrade to the Crawford St Lifestyle Precinct in 2012, and is set to be rolled out over the next two years.

Council budgeted $4.8 million for the entire project in its recent 2013-17 Delivery Program, which needs to fund a range of pedestrian-friendly upgrades for Monaro Street, as well as improvements to the city gateways at Lowe and Collett streets, new traffic lights at the intersection of Morisset and Collett streets, on top of new car parking and upgrades to the river frontage opposite Riverside Plaza.

With the final budget for the riverside precinct part of the upgrades set to be well under the total $4.8 million allocation, Cr Cregan said the community was being misled by the publication of concept design images drawn from a plan worth three times Council's budget.

"I wouldn't be surprised if all they get left with [for the river] is $2 million," Cr Cregan told The Queanbeyan Age this week. "We need to be telling the community what they're really going to get, otherwise, it's misleading the community."

Council's parks manager Tim Geyer told last week's meeting that the concept for the design of the precinct, awarded to national landscape architecture firm Clouston Associates last September, had since been scaled back with the designers to better reflect Council's budgetary constraints. The Queanbeyan Age sought further comment from Council this week as to what portion of the $4.8 million budget has already been spent on main street improvements, however no information was provided.

Cr Cregan said at last week's meeting that Councillors had been informed by Clouston Associates designers late last year that the initial design drawings published in City Life came from a plan costed at $10.5 million.

Cr Brian Brown said he was concerned that the early planning stages of the CBD Stage 2 upgrades were overly focused on the riverside precinct at the expense of safety improvements for pedestrians in Monaro Street.

"I'd like to go back to the original plan," Cr Brown said. "It's all well and good beautifying the park...but my priority is making the pedestrian way around the CBD safe."

However Cr Toni McLennan said the riverside area should be the focus.

"My view is that if you want people to stay in Queanbeyan and spend their money here, then a big part of that is an upgrade to the riverside precinct."

An updated budget report on the CBD Stage 2 upgrades is being prepared for councillors and will be discussed next week.