THE future of two British hovercraft giants, based in Hampshire, hangs in the balance.

Star attractions at the internationally renowned Hovercraft Museum have been earmarked for demolition – any day now.

But thousands of people have voiced their support, and a petition set up last Friday night, has already amassed more than 8,000 signatures.

The 300 tonne SRN4 passenger vessels – the Princess Anne and the Princess Margaret – were the largest and fastest in the world, and are currently housed at the Hovercraft Museum in Lee-on-Solent.

But with landowner Homes and Communities Agency’s plans to develop the Daedalus Airfield site, the massive vessels will either have to be removed or sold off for scrap.

Built by the British Hovercraft Corporation on the Isle of Wight in the 1960s, the ships were powered by four Rolls Royce Proteus marine turboshaft engines.

Over their lifetime they made tens of thousands of crossings a day, carrying 80 million passengers and 15 million cars, with the Princess Anne setting a record of 22 minutes for the fastest ever crossing of the English Channel by a commercial car-carrying hovercraft in 1995.

The Princess Margaret even featured in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever in 1971.

Decommissioned in 2000, the craft were retired by ferry company Hoverspeed and put into storage at the museum.

They were then sold to the succession trust, Wensley Haydon-Baillie in 2007, but a legal battle between land and craft owners ended on Friday with courts giving a consent order to demolish or remove them from the land.

If the SRN4s are demolished, the museum’s future would also look bleak.

The only museum of its kind in the world, it has 60 other hovercraft on show, as well as films and models. But trustee Emma Pullen said: “The SRN4s are the centre point of the museum and our most important exhibits. Many people come simply to see these huge relics from a bygone age and their loss would be an enormous blow to the museum.

• Join the Hovercraft campaign at change.org

“But more importantly they are a piece of British history, the like of which we will never see again. The Hovercraft Museum is dedicated to preserving them and we hope that a deal can be reached to allow this to happen. We will do everything in our powers to protect at least one of these national treasures.”

Trustee and lifelong hovercraft enthusiast Warwick Jacobs added: “They are the Concorde of the hovercraft world.”

Desperate trustees at the museum have submitted a proposal to HCA to save the Princess Anne, which is in better condition than the Princess Margaret, and is likely to be broken up and sold for scrap.

HCA released a statement saying that: “Our aim is to develop the land to create much needed homes and jobs, and regenerate the local area.

"We are currently in discussions with local partners, including the museum, to find a solution for the hovercrafts. There is no deadline for their removal but we are looking to find a solution as soon as possible."

The museum is speaking with the National Historical Ships Register who it is hoped will help protect the vessels.