There are many dock and dry dock facilities throughout the UK which could take the ships in place of Hartlepool.

Margaret Beckett's personal prestige within the Labour Party can only be diminished by the events of the last few days. Those who supported her in the Labour Party leadership election must be broken-hearted.

Seaton Carew is a wonderful little seaside town with a great future in tourism. There could be many more jobs created for local people in the leisure industry.

Seaton has some stunning Georgian buildings. It has a great beach. The hotels and the beach at Seaton were featured on the BBC Holiday programme just last year.

The bad publicity coming to Hartlepool from the ghost ships can seriously damage Seaton's future.

I believe the only sensible choice for the creation of jobs in Hartlepool is for the remaining ghost ships to be kept away.

NIGEL BODDY Former Parliamentary candidate for the Lib Dems (Hartlepool 2001), Middlesbrough

* YOUR pro-ghost ship writer asks where would Teesside have been today if environmentalists/Friends of the Earth had existed during the industrial revolution? Probably not the renowned centre of dirty industry that it is now.

We should not romanticise heavy industry. Anyone employed in these activities who gets a decent income will live as far away from Teesside as possible. Only those not wealthy and mobile enough to leave industrial areas get stuck behind to live with the eyesores and the pollution. The Americans should have dealt with the vessels in their own shipyards.

MR R HIGGINS, Guisborough

* IT is recognised by authorities that the only sure method of disposing of asbestos properly is by extreme heat.

To bury asbestos in landfill sites such as Able UK are to do is a negative action and will doubtless come back to haunt future generations. It will still be in the same dangerous condition in 1,000 years time and almost certainly contaminate the food chain.

Asbestos is legally banned from entering the UK, therefore I cannot understand why Government are allowing the ghost ships, which contain asbestos, to be brought here.

All asbestos is deadly, fibres are invisible to the naked eye and attack not only the lungs but many other organs, and may manifest itself up to 40 years after contact. The risk of bringing the ghost ships to the UK is horrific to contemplate, the benefits very dubious.

DENNIS LANE, Coulby Newham

Article Link: Repent at Leisure