THE second two Ghost Ships were last night in the English Channel and are expected to dock in the North-East at the end of this week.

The Canopus, a submarine repair vessel, will be towed in to Hartlepool on Thursday, followed by Compass Island, a dry bulk cargo ship, on Friday.

They are being towed by two Dutch tugs, the Sable Cape and the Solana, and will moor in the basin at Graythrop Dock, in Hartlepool, with the two ships that arrived earlier this month.

Controversy over the vessels rages on, with environmentalists campaigning to have them sent back to the James River, in Virginia, US.

Protestors to the project to dismantle the aged ships and bury what cannot be recycled at a landfill site, have criticised Hartlepool MP Peter Mandelson's broadsides against Friends of the Earth.

He has accused the pressure group of "scaremongering" and "whipping up public opinion" against the scheme.

Friends of the Earth have hit back, saying they have got their facts right and challenging the politician to a serious debate.

The row has sparked anger among the people who called in Friends of the Earth and criticised Mr Mandelson in a joint letter from all 11 of them.

It said: "We don't know if Mr Mandelson thinks that all Northerners are simplistic, gullible fools, or just we Hartlepudlians, but we can assure him that when he, our Islington-based semi-detached Member of Parliament, talks of Friends of the Earth as an interfering London-based pressure group it does him no favours with his electorate."

The Environment Agency has said it would be happy for the work to be done on Teesside if all the necessary permissions were in place, pending a legal battle at High Court next month.

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