A NORTH-EAST environmental group has been accused of scaremongering after naming potential plutonium waste dump sites.

The Green Party on Teesside is criticised by the boss of Cleveland Potash for suggesting in a report out today that Boulby mine, in east Cleveland, could be used.

The Greens' claim that the former anhydrite mine below Billingham could be a second destination for nuclear waste has also been emphatically denied by ICI, owners of the old workings.

A Government spokeswoman said the sites were not being considered.

Former police officer Bill Wennington, the man behind the report - Destination Teesside? - The Plutonium Legacy - is standing by what he says "until we get an assurance from the Government that Teesside is not being targeted.

"Teesside is an area with a tradition of living with dangerous, noxious substances. It will be high in the list in my view," he said.

His document says of the Billingham mine: "It is clear that ICI's new policy of selling off its Teesside assets means that the future ownership and use of the caverns cannot be guaranteed."

On Boulby he said: "Although still in use as a mine, it is owned by an international corporation with no particular interest in this area."

Mr Wennington was not in Billingham when, in 1985, following a public outcry the then Secretary of State or the Environment announced in the House of Commons that Billingham had been ruled out as a dump for nuclear waste.

An ICI spokesman said: "ICI's view remains the same. ICI has no intention of allowing its former anhydrite mine at Billingham to be used for the storage of nuclear waste."

Robert Laybourne, managing director of Cleveland Potash, said to suggest otherwise was "gossip". He said: "It is total nonsense; ridiculous. There is no substance in it. The mine is not suitable for the storage of wastes, there is too much water about."

Nuclear waste disposal firm Nirex ruled out using the mine in 1988; but Mr Wennington says the stockpiles of plutonium waste have got to go somewhere