PLANS to import a ghost fleet of vessels from the US will be blocked if the North-East company responsible fails to convince coastguards there will be no environmental fallout.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said strict tests must be met before they will allow the 13 dilapidated ships to cross the Atlantic Ocean to Hartlepool.

They have the power to stop Able UK's £10.8m project to break up the former US Navy ships that are carrying an average 98 tonnes of asbestos each.

Environmentalists said the ships were carrying cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and are so dilapidated they could break up in stormy weather.

MCA spokesman Mark Clark said: "We are not going to have any threat to the environment that has got into the country through our waters."

Able UK has given the MCA a passage plan and will be forwarding its arrangements to have the ships towed 4,000 miles from their current mooring on the River James, in Virginia, where they will be inspected before setting off.

The company is confident it has the expertise to get the vessels through the busy English Channel to a dry dock at Graythorp, where it said workers will dismantle them safely.

Once at the dock, the Environment Agency and the Health and Safety Executive will oversee the operation and have pledged to step in if they think there is a threat to public health or the environment.

Friends of the Earth has expressed concerns about the potential impact of pollution at sea, and said it has grave fears about Able UK's plan to bury material they cannot recycle in a site at Seaton Meadows, in Hartlepool.

The group is considering making a legal bid to block to ships.