Press Releases - ABLE

COMPANY HITS BACK OVER LATEST ‘DISTORTION’
10/10/03

The Managing Director of Able UK has today (October 10th) attacked what he described as the ‘quite appalling distortion’ of a release from the Friends of the Earth organisation headlined ‘Ghost ships must not be dealt with in wet dock says Environment Agency.’

In its release Friends of the Earth claimed that an official from the Environment Agency had ‘made it clear that the disposal of the ships must be completed in a dry dock’—a claim, says Peter Stephenson, is clearly not true.

Said Mr Stephenson “I suppose I should not be surprised at the tactics which Friends of the Earth are prepared to employ to maintain their scaremongering campaign over our contract for the recycling of American cargo vessels, but this latest claim is particularly outrageous because it attempts to totally misrepresent the position of a Government agency.

“The Environment Agency has made clear—and I quote directly from its statement-- that it would ‘prefer the work to be carried out in a dry dock.’ That is exactly the position of our company .

“Our position remains that, on the basis of our legal advice, we have the necessary planning permission in place for us to pursue that course of action which is the most environmentally friendly option.

“I have no objection to organisations raising valid questions and concerns. What I regard as totally unacceptable is when they stoop to the level of misrepresenting the facts and the position of a statutory agency simply in an attempt to grab a few more headlines.”

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