Dealers are set to lose their homes under radical new plans to combat the drugs menace on North-East streets.

Police have drawn up a tough new policy aimed at driving out dealers who make thousands pedalling drugs.

Politicians are pressing the Government to give the policy the go-ahead.

They hope the North-East will be included in a series of nationwide trials designed to test the effectiveness of tackling drugs.

Middlesbrough Council said a "strong case'' had been made to Home Secretary David Blunkett to allow Teesside to be a trial area for the new initiative set out in the recent Anti Social Behaviour White Paper.And if it gets the go-ahead persistent drug dealers could find themselves out on the streets with the addicts they exploit.

Coun Ken Walker, chairman of the Cleveland Police Authority, said last night: "Given our experience of the problems caused by criminals - many from other parts of the country - using the availability of cheap property to set up drug dens and crack houses, I am hopeful that we will receive a positive response from David Blunkett.''

Coun Walker has led a crusade to stop narcotic dealing "drug tourists'' moving into the area attracted by cheap property prices.

Teesside is the only area in the North East and North Yorkshire facing a growing menace of Jamaicans with Yardie terror gang links opening up crack houses.

The politician said: "If we are successful I expect that we will be considering in detail at the police authority how we can ensure that these measures can be implemented as effectively as possible in order to underline what I describe as drug tourists that are not welcome in this areas - and we will do everything to bring them to justice and end their evil trade.''

His words come after a string of Teesside Crown Court trails ending in the sentencing of Jamaican drug dealers with suspected Yardie connections.

Only last week five illegal immigrant Jamaicans were jailed for a total of 18.5 years after being charged with conspiracy to supply a class A drug (crack cocaine). After their sentences they will be deported.

Coun Walker said: "The judge said in court that ' the sooner this country is rid of you, the better,' and those are exactly my sentiments too.''

He attended a meeting in Birmingham on Monday of the Association of Chief Police Officers when president, Chris Fox warned newspaper that a "tidal wave'' of mass immigration had brought a "new wave of crime.

He claimed: ''Mass migration has brought with it a whole new range and a whole new type of crime, from the Nigerian fraudster, to the eastern European who deals in drugs and prostitution to the Jamaican concentration on drug dealing,'' he said.