PARENTS in the North-East may still be able to buy their children this year's must-have toys this Christmas - so long as they're quick.

Thousands of youngsters across the country face disappointment on Christmas Day because of a shortage of the three top-selling toys.

Manufacturers failed to predict the huge popularity of Beyblades spinning tops, Baby Annabel and Barbie Rapunzel and hundreds of shops have run out of supplies.

But some North-East stores still have limited supplies of the three toys, though they are urging parents to act fast.

Barrie Lamb, of Lamb's Toys, in Cockerton, Darlington, said that of the thousands of customers who had placed advance orders for Beyblades in the past few weeks, only a handful had received the toys.

"On Saturday, we had about two or three hundred people asking for Beyblades. It's been like it since September.

"But we can't complete the orders we have. When we had them in, we sold 800 in two days."

The store does have stocks of Baby Annabel and Barbie Rapunzel. But Mr Lamb said: "We bought in lots of Baby Annabel, but it is the top-selling doll so people need to buy quickly."

A quick survey of half-a-dozen stores across the region found just one outlet stocking Beyblades, a modern Japanese take on the traditional spinning top.

Woolworths in the MetroCentre said it was receiving deliveries of Beyblades, which were selling out in minutes.

A delivery of 100 toys at 3pm yesterday, had gone by 3.30pm.

Toy manager Karen Railing said: "It's crazy. We have had people fighting over them in the store. We just put them in a trolley at the front of the store and they sell like mad."

Toys'R'Us in Teesside Park still had "quite a few" Barbie Rapunzels and limited numbers of Baby Annabels.

Toymaster, in Darlington's Cornmill Centre, had "four or five" Barbie Rapunzel dolls in stock, but had sold out of the other doll.

A spokeswoman for the British Association of Toy Retailers said manufacturers were working hard to get extra stocks of the toys in shops before December 25.

"Children's tastes are not always easy to anticipate and can change quickly," she added. "As there tends to be an eight to 12 lead week between shops requesting more toys and stocks being made available, it is sometimes difficult to react quickly to sudden upsurges in demand.