LIFE is all about image. It is there wherever you look.

From our nation's senior politicians trying to project their better sides, down to the scantily clad men or women extolling the virtues of product x over product y, everything is about perception.

So it is with fear and dread that I ponder the impact of the unseemly row over the Ghost Ships. I have splinters from sitting on the fence on this issue. I understand that ordinary members of the public have concerns and that confusion reigns. Who do you trust - the company that wants the business or the environmentalists, well-known for vociferous views on anything that so much as breaks wind (after all, methane is bad for the ozone layer)?

On the other hand, how many contracts has Able UK dealt with in the past that encompass all the issues raised by these rusting hulks and more?

Throughout all this, a debate has raged locally and nationally that paints Hartlepool (and the wider North-East) as a barren wasteland of asbestos mountains and PCBs.

An eminent academic in this region decried to me the image we present to the wider world. Asked by a television news crew to comment on an economic issue facing the Redcar area, he said he was whisked off to the town, plonked in front of steelmaker Corus's steaming blast furnace and asked to discuss the business problems the town had.

"It's no wonder people steer clear of our region," he told me. "We always project the worst images."

I hope for the good of the town, the company and the wider region that this tug-o-war over a flotilla of decrepid US warships does not continue ad infinitum.

THE region's image problem is not only playing itself out on the seas. The airways are also amassing column inches.

Teesside International Airport will, without a shadow of a doubt, change its name to Durham Tees Valley in the very near future. Like it or not, I cannot see any of the authorities standing against the change.

And why should they? They took a brave decision passing power over to Peel Holdings for the good of the airport.

That trust should extend to renaming the airport, if that is what stands between us and greater prosperity.

Published: 02/12/2003