A great step forward was taken today in the campaign to extend and improve services at York's St Leonard's Hospice.

The hospice celebrated the official handing over of deeds to an extra half acre of land that will enable it to start work on its Millennium Project.

It means construction work on its redevelopment can start this spring.

The land has been bought with the help of the Evening Press Hospice 2000 Appeal, which is now nearing £900,000.

Its target is to raise £2 million by the end of this year to enable St Leonard's to redevelop and extend its premises so that more patients can be cared for and more families helped.

The land has been purchased from the adjacent Wilberforce Home for the Blind in Tadcaster Road. St Leonard's chief executive Steven Harker, who with hospice chairman of trustees Trevor Copley has been responsible for the negotiations, said today: "With the help and support of all those who have contributed to our Millennium Appeal launched just over a year ago, we are delighted to have completed the purchase of the land.

"We are now in the process of choosing a contractor and a shortlist of six companies has been drawn up from the 11 who were invited to express interest. "Construction will be on a phased basis starting in the spring with the building of a new roadway for access to the new land at the rear of our existing building. Work will then be able to start on the development of the new, 20 bed in-patient annexe that we so badly need."

The link with the Wilberforce Home - which cares for blind and disabled residents from a wide area - goes back more than 20 years. Land was purchased from them to build the original hospice, completed in the autumn of 1984 with the first in-patient admitted the following February.

A Service of Thanksgiving for 15 years of the hospice takes place in York Minster on Sunday, February 13.

Anyone wishing to help in any way, should get in touch with St Leonard's Hospice Fundraising Office at 12 York Road, Acomb, York, YO24 4LU, or telephone them on 01904 781576.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.