Cancer charity chiefs today launched a massive appeal to build a £5 million hospice in Bradford.

The new Marie Curie Centre at Leeds Road Hospital in Bradford will be the most modern hospice of its kind in the country when it opens its doors in 2001.

It will offer palliative care to about 600 new cancer patients and their families each year and has been hailed as a centre of excellence to replace the Ardenlea Centre in Ilkley which has become outdated.

Deaths from cancer are above the national average in Bradford but it is the only city in the north of England without its own centrally-located hospice.

The charity hopes to raise £1 million in a huge fund-raising effort across the Bradford district towards the cost of the centre with the remaining cash coming from Marie Curie's national 50th anniversary Golden Daffodil Appeal and the European Union.

Key features will include:

16 in-patient beds mainly in single rooms with en-suite facilities.

Outpatient clinics with consulting rooms and treatment areas.

A 15-place day therapy unit.

A bereavement service for children and adults.

The new hospice will be built at the centre of Leeds Road Hospital site while other parts of the hospital including trust headquarters and family planning services will remain.

The centre will take its place alongside the Sue Ryder Manorlands Hospice at Oxenhope caring for 1,200 people a year from Bradford district.

Health chiefs have long wanted to open a hospice in the centre of Bradford to make services more accessible to patients and their families.

The Ardenlea hospice will close under the plans but a consultation will be carried out with people in Ilkley about how services can be developed in other ways in the town.

Dr Andrew Daley, medical director at the Ilkley centre, said he was excited by the plans.

"The new centre will be a centre of excellence in the field of specialist palliative care and will be the most modern facility of its kind in the country," he said.

"It makes perfect sense to build it in Bradford because around 75 per cent of our patients live in the city and currently have to travel out to Ilkley.

"We also need to expand and improve our facilities for patients and relatives and that's just not possible at Ilkley."

Brian Curran, Marie Curie's fundraiser for the appeal, said: "The new centre will embrace the physical, emotional, spiritual and cultural needs appropriate to Bradford's residents.

"I am confident we can raise at least £1 million with the support of local people."

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