A LABOUR city councillor has accused the Conservative ruling group of doing a U-turn on its policy for promoting employment sites in the city.

Councillor Jo Hodges said the Tories were supporting the identification of greenfield sites for employment developments, despite opposing the idea when Labour were in power.

The council needs to find 75 hectares of employment land - areas that must be used for purposes other than retail or housing - to be developed by 2011.

The development and marketing of brownfield sites is being made a priority - but the inevitable shortfall means that greenfield sites will have to be earmarked as well.

The council needs to maintain a ratio of one hectare of employment land to 70 dwellings.

Sites being made priorities include Central Park in Midland Road, the former fruit and vegetable market in Hylton Road, and the former Ronkswood Hospital site.

The city's head of planning and economic development, Mark Middleton, said it was important to encourage potential developers to think about building offices rather than the more appealing option of creating more houses.

But, at the last development services policy and review committee meeting, Coun Hodges said the situation had not changed since 1999.

"We're still trying to find 75 hectares of land," she said. "When we were in power, we were criticised for our acceptance that greenfield sites had to be used for this purpose.

"It seems that when you are in control you have one view of things, but it's quite different when you are in opposition."

Committee chairman Coun Mike Layland said the problem was that a lot of offices were not taken up.

"We have to question the demand when there are so many empty properties and land not taken up," he said.

He said there should be a way of stopping developers using greenfield sites until all brownfield land was taken up.