INSPECTORS will decide next year whether a nuclear power station can be built in the region, after the Government triggered a row by backing the idea in principle.

Describing the case for new plants as compelling, Business Secretary John Hutton said they would be built in the vicinity of existing nuclear facilities.

That raises the prospect of a replacement power station at Hartlepool -one of 19 existing reactors -if an assessment next year agrees it is suitable.

British Energy has already said a new £2bn plant would safeguard the 600 jobs at the power station, as well as creating up to 3,000 more during construction.

A study by Government consultants released last year identified Hartlepool as the sixth best site in Britain, using ease of connection to the National Grid as the key factor.

Last night, the North-East Chamber of Commerce said it hoped Hartlepool would be chosen, to secure energy supplies to local businesses and create jobs.

Ross Smith, its head of policy, said: "We firmly believe that the continuation of nuclear power generation at British Energy's Hartlepool site will play an important part in this."

But the go-ahead will be bitterly fought by environmentalists, who believe nuclear power is expensive, dirty and dangerous.

Controversially, the Government has already signalled that an unelected commission, rather than a planning inquiry, would decide any proposal.

Ministers are desperate to avoid the delays that dogged the building of Britain's last nuclear plant, Sizewell B, in Suffolk. That inquiry took six years and cost £30m.

But, in the Commons, former Tory environment minister John Gummer, whose constituency covers Sizewell, condemned the idea of a commission, and said it would silence local people.

In a statement to MPs, Mr Hutton said he expected several new nuclear plants to be in operation by 2020, because they could be fast-tracked through planning.

But four sites in the South -Hinkley Point, in Somerset, Sizewell, Bradwell, in Essex, and Dungeness, in Kent -are considered the most likely first candidates.

Mr Hutton told MPs that new nuclear plants were a safe and secure way of producing energy, while producing little carbon blamed for global warming.

He said they were needed because a third of the UK's generating capacity would be lost over the next 20 years as nuclear plants close.

Mr Hutton said: "Set against the challenges of climate change and security of supply, the evidence in support of new nuclear power stations is compelling."

The Tories were largely supportive, but the Lib Dems said the Government should concentrate on renewable energy sources, instead of the nuclear "white elephant".

Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper said: "New nuclear reactors are not the answer to UK energy problems and will do little to tackle climate change."

Mr Hutton said it was up to energy companies to fund, develop and build the plants without financial help, including meeting the full costs of decommissioning.

But he was later forced to admit that none had been built anywhere in the world without public subsidy.

And he said the new plants would go ahead before an underground site was found to bury the radioactive waste they generate and the existing stockpile.

Hartlepool's nuclear plant is due to be decommissioned in 2014, but could have its life extended by up to ten years.