Two of the original campaigners who battled to get the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford more than 30 years ago are now preparing to fight to safeguard its future.

Pensioners Ron Munt and Les Tait said they marched to get the hospital all those years ago and now they were prepared to march again. The pair are both former members of the Amalgamated Union of Engineers.

They were on a Telford Trades Council committee which lobbied health chiefs and Parliament repeatedly in the 1970s until the town eventually got its hospital.

Mr Munt, 73, and 77-year-old Mr Tait were in Dawley High Street yesterday for the official launch by Telford Labour MP David Wright of a new petition to fight any downgrading of the PRH.

Mr Wright’s Say No to Shrewsbury petition, which has already attracted hundreds of names, will be presented to county health chiefs during public consultations of plans which could see the PRH downgraded in 2012/13, with some acute services being transferred to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

Mr Munt, of Trench, Telford, said: “We went on delegations to the Birmingham Hospital board and down to Parliament on numerous occasions. We marched then and we will march again if need be.

“I remember we met the then Health Secretary Keith Joseph on one trip to London and we gathered petitions containing thousands and thousands of names.

“I remember when it was announced that we would get our hospital we felt euphoric. The people had spoken.

“The hospital wasn’t given to us by anyone. It was fought for and obtained by the people and that spirit has got to prevail again.

“We campaigned very hard to get it and now we are standing shoulder to shoulder with Mr Wright in the fight to keep it.”

The hospital began taking patients in 1989 but it was not until the following year that it was officially opened by the Princess Royal, Princess Anne.

Mr Tait said: “It now looks like all that good work could start to unravel.

“This is not about politics. It is not about Telford versus Shrewsbury. It is about people. While we want to keep the excellent services we have at the PRH we want Shrewsbury to have the same as well.

“Telford is growing, it is heading for three times the population of Shrewsbury, and there are potentially 40,000 people who will need treatment.”