ENVIRONMENTALISTS could launch a last-ditch legal challenge through the UK courts in a bid to prevent a toxic "ghost fleet" from being dismantled in the North-East.

Four defunct US naval ships are expected to leave this weekend for Hartlepool after a US judge gave the go-ahead to for them to leave their moorings in Virginia.

Two US environment groups, the Basel Action Network and Sierra Club, had applied for the emergency restraining order against the ship's owner, US Maritime Administration, at the Federal District Court for the district of Columbia, saying the fleet was in a dangerous deteriorating condition.

A full hearing in the case of the other nine ships in the fleet will be heard on October 20.

Last night a Friends of the Earth spokeswoman said the group could consider an injunction to prevent the fleet entering UK waters.

Meanwhile, opposition to the breaking up of the ships by Able UK at its base in Graythorp, Teesside, has continued to mount.

Hartlepool people met at Owton Manor Community Centre to voice their opposition. Tempers flared when chairman of the meeting Councillor Tony Groom asked television cameras to leave.

Members of the public demanded they stay, shouting: "We have been lied to long enough."

None of the 150-strong crowd backed the scheme or welcomed the reported 200 jobs it will create.

They expressed fears about the dangers of burying tonnes of asbestos in a landfill site, at Seaton Meadows, and said the deal had seriously harmed the reputation of the town around the world.

Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Norman Baker said: ''The Americans created it and they should deal with it."

Bob Pendlebury, chairman of the Northumbria Tourist Board, said: ''The kind of publicity given to these proposals can only do harm to our continuing efforts to show people a different image of the North-East of England.''

The fleet, which is between 40 and 50 years old, is contaminated with a number of potentially dangerous chemicals such as lead, asbestos and PCBs.

The contract to dismantle the ships is worth about £16m to Able UK and will create about 200 jobs.

Able UK managing director Peter Stephenson said: "This decision will help ensure that the redundant ships are disposed of in the most environmentally friendly and safest way possible."

Both the Environment Agency and Hartlepool Council have given their approvals to the work taking place.

Neil Etherington, chief executive of the Tees Valley Development Company, said: "We should look forward to the prospects of gaining further contracts in a rapidly expanding world-wide market."