Later this week MPs on an influential Commons committee will debate the issue.

Although they have no powers to decide the ships' future, they will investigate the confusion surrounding the deal, the ships' export to Britain and hear from many people involved in the deal.

Ahead of that meeting Hartlepool Council has paid for a full-page colour advert in weekly publication The House.

The magazine is produced for MPs, members of the House of Lords and civil servants and charges more than £3,800 for a full-page colour advert.

Today Hartlepool Council chairman Carl Richardson, who wrote the text of the advert, told the Gazette it cost "around" £2,500 and that the cash to pay for it "came from within the council".

The article says the ghost ships affair has damaged Hartlepool's image and asks why the ships left America.

Councillor Richardson also spells out the council's opposition to the project and calls on the Government "to intervene and send the ships back to the United States at the earliest possible opportunity".

Cllr Richardson said: "We did this because we want people in the House of Commons and the Government to know how strongly we feel.

"We as councillors feel we are reflecting the wishes of public opinion in that we want the ships to go back.

"We have done a lot of work to develop Hartlepool as a tourist town and the problem of the ghost ships publicity has not helped that image.

"We want the powers-that-be to know where we stand.

"Environment secretary Margaret Beckett has said the same thing, she wants these ships returned."

Hartlepool MP Peter Mandelson said: "I can't see what the point of this is and why Hartlepool should seek to advertise itself this way.

"I can think of many better ways to spend this money on improving services to the townspeople."

The ghost ships are retired US naval vessels that were to be broken up and recycled by Able UK at its Graythorp yard.

Because the ships have asbestos and cancer-linked PCBs on board, the deal outraged green groups who said America should handle its own waste. But the £11m contract ran into trouble when the Environment Agency, which was regulating the deal, pulled the plug, saying Able did not have all the consents it needed and that if the ships docked in the UK it would be illegal.

A week later the Government said the first two 'ghost ships' could dock on Teesside. And this weekend the Government said the second pair of ships, which set off about a week after the first pair, could also dock at
Hartlepool.

The fate of the ships will be decided at two High Court hearings next month.

Article Link: Thousands for Anti-ship Advert