INVERCLYDE Council is to tell Peel Ports to do a u-turn on its proposal to bring up to 12 cruise ships to Greenock for lay-up.

The Tele revealed on Tuesday how the Ocean Terminal owners had hatched a plan to provide berthing facilities for liners as the cruise industry grinds to a halt due to coronavirus.

But our exclusive sparked a wave of public anger, with people upset about the prospect of potentially thousands of crew members from the vessels being brought ashore in a town at the centre of Scotland's Covid-19 outbreak.

The local authority's policy and resources executive sub-committee met in private to consider the plan yesterday.

Following those talks the council leader Stephen McCabe said 'we cannot support a proposal to lay-up cruise ships in the Clyde and we would urge that any proposals are reconsidered as a matter of urgency'.

Mr McCabe added: "At this time during a global pandemic and health crisis it wouldn’t be appropriate to put a significant number of people into one location which has the potential to put strain on our public health services.

"We do not want to put anyone, including the crew of the cruise ships, into any harm and it is crucially important that nothing is done that interferes with the stay at home messages.

"We want many more people to visit and discover the amazing things we have in Inverclyde, but our message is not right now."

The council’s chief executive will be writing to bosses at Peel to confirm the council’s opposition and to 'urge them to reconsider any proposals at this time'.