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

Four ships from the US National Defense Reverse Fleet 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 ships owners US Maritime Administration (MARAD) at the Federal District Court for the district of Columbia.

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 confirmed to The Northern Echo that the group could consider its own injunction in a bid to prevent the fleet entering UK waters.

She said: "That is one of the options that we are looking at."

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

Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Norman Baker said: ''The principal must be that you dispose of waste as close as possible to the source. The Americans created it and they should deal with it.

''The Government should at an early stage have made this clear to the American authorities instead of facilitating Britain's role as a repository for clapped-out environmentally-dangerous ships and rolling over for the Americans.''

Bob Pendlebury, chairman of the Northumbria Tourist Board, said: ''We have worked so hard in the last 30 to 40 years to get rid of the old dereliction and pit heaps and 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 ghost fleet, which is between 40 and 50 years old, is contaminated with a number of potentially dangerous chemicals such as lead, asbestos and PCBs.

Ships from the fleet will be towed some 4,000 miles across the Atlantic and are expected to take about 25 days to arrive.

The contract to dismantle them is worth about £16 million 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.

"It is certainly much better than having vessels sunk at sea or scrapped on the beach of a developing country with no proper controls or protection for workers or the environment."

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: "It is really time for an end to the scare stories. "Instead we should look forward to the prospects of gaining further contracts and further jobs in what is a rapidly expanding world-wide market." Ends