SCORES of investors have been handing over thousands of pounds for land in an Oxfordshire village which has no chance of ever being built on.

The allegation that plots of land with no development potential were sold in Eynsham was made by BBC South's current affairs programme Inside Out on Monday.

The programme said that a company called Commercial Land, based in St John's Square, London, formerly European Land Sales Partnership (ELS), specialises in buying agricultural land and dividing it into tiny plots, which it then sells to investors at £5,000 for every 0.02 of an acre.

In Oxfordshire, it was alleged that ELS made hundreds of thousands of pounds by selling land.

Investors were not told, however, that the land near Eynsham is in the Oxford green belt and on a flood plain.

West Oxfordshire District Council said it would never allow building there.

West Oxfordshire area planning manager Phil Shaw said: "It has been alleged that the land was sold as an investment with the potential to make a lot more money.

"It is also claimed that the company was targeting people from minority communities who may not be aware of the planning laws.

"We have been approached by people who have been induced into buying the land.

"In the planning press at the moment there are certainly a number of such schemes going on across the country. It plays on people's perceptions that every bit of land will be concreted over one day."

None of the people who invested between £5,000 and £10,000 for a plot of land was from Oxfordshire.

The Oxford Times was unable to contact ELS main partner Steven Cleeve, but in a statement published on the BBC website he said: "We are not free to discuss our planning processes as this could prejudice our chances of gaining the relevant permission and as such would be doing our clients a disservice.

"European Land Sales is a bona fide organisation and has a strict disciplinary code."

The district council's area planning manager Mr Shaw added: "Anyone who is offered land, it is only the cost of a phone call to the council to find out what its development potential is. We are quite happy to give an impartial opinion."

Mr Shaw said he thought the plots of land - which lie off the road linking the toll bridge and the A40 - were all sold about two-and-a-half years ago.

In September last year, a warning went out to people considering paying more than £20,000 for plots of greenfield land in the village of Hailey because there was little prospect of it ever being used for development.

London-based Glenridge Estate stood to make £3.5m from the sale of plots of the 40 acres of land. The company said buyers were not being misled.