Press Releases - ABLE

COMPANY ‘OVERWHELMED’ WITH SUPPORT FOR SHIPS CONTRACT
14/11/03

The Managing Director of Able UK says he has been ‘overwhelmed’ by the huge amount of support the company is receiving over its contract to recycle redundant vessels at its Graythorp facility.

Peter Stephenson, speaking shortly after the Hartlepool MP Peter Mandelson had visited the Teesside Environmental Reclamation & Recycling Centre (TERRC) facility to see for himself the two vessels, the ‘Caloosahatchee’ and ‘Canisteo’ which arrived this week, revealed that he had received hundreds of messages, expressing support for the company and highly critical of the campaign by Friends of the Earth and others in their attempts to block the contract.

Said Mr Stephenson “It is remarkable that over recent days we have seen an ever-growing flow of public expressions of support from a wide range of individuals and organisations. Obviously we are particularly grateful for the interest which Peter Mandelson has shown as our local MP and we were delighted that he took the time to visit the facility, the vessels and examine the facts, discussing with us how we can resolve outstanding issues and enable the work to proceed for the benefit of Hartlepool and indeed the whole area.

“Many other people, including Frank Cook MP who also has a direct interest because our headquarters at Billingham are in his constituency, have joined with Peter Mandelson in exposing the disgraceful scaremongering tactics of Friends of the Earth and their allies.

“Equally impressive is the hundreds of messages we have received from various organisations and individual members of public—including a number of member of Friends of the Earth!—who are appalled that an organisation which claims to care for the environment has deliberately attempted to undermine our efforts to provide the best possible environmentally-friendly method for recycling these redundant vessels.

“I want to express the genuine appreciation of everyone who has assisted and sent notes of their support, and hope they will understand that, because of the huge levels of interest, we have not yet had the chance yet to respond directly to everybody.

“What’s clear is that day-by-day more and more people are beginning to listen to facts rather than fiction…they have seen for themselves that the ships are not the horrific hulks that the scaremongers would have had us believe…and they are not prepared to be misled and manipulated by those who claim to have the interests of the environment at heart but in reality are simply looking for the next headline.”

<< back