MORE land needs to be made available to Colchester Council if it is to hit its target of allowing 19,000 houses to be built by 2023, according to local planners.

Council officers were told yesterday they needed to broaden their search for sites if they are to meet the target set by the East of England Development Agency.

Brian Morgan, of chartered architects and town planners ADP, told the meeting at the Town Hall, the council should look at building more homes away from the centre of town, rather than flats.

He said greenfield sites, which are areas where no homes have been built before, should be looked at for homes.

Mr Morgan also felt villages around Colchester needed to take more new housing as part of the borough’s Local Development Framework and to help the communities there survive.

Mr Morgan said: “I believe the issue is building houses people want to buy.

“Allocation of greenfield would provide small family housing, not expensive town flats. We have an assumption that if we put more houses in villages, that is going to make everyone happy. If you have a village of 700 people, an extra ten people won’t make a difference.”

But Kevin Syrett, from Colchester Council, said there were enough brownfield sites, which are sites that have previously been built on.

He said a example of this was the old Severells Hospital site in the town, which is being turned into a mass housing development.