GENEROUS fundraisers have given a four-figure boost to plans for a ground-breaking cancer centre – raising £1,000 for the planned facility.

The women of Padworth Ladies Social Group raised the money to go towards construction of an £18million cancer centre being planned by Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The team need to raise around £5million from charitable donations and fundraising for the facility, which will reduce the amount of time and distance patients have to travel to receive radiotherapy and chemotherapy. The new centre, which should open within three years will also offer palliative care and more general support, including hair care, beauty treatments and financial and employment advice.

Thanking the Padworth Ladies for their donation, Mr Merv Rees, clinical director of surgery at HHFT and trustee of The Ark Cancer Centre Charity, set up to fundraise for the facility, said: “The new cancer centre will make a big difference to how we care for patients suffering from this disease.”

As previously reported, the cancer centre will be built on a site yet to be named but which will be encircled by the M3, A303 and A34.

Last week, The Gazette reported how a design team from award-winning architects BDP have now been appointed by HHFT to develop their submission of how the new cancer centre will look.