Fundraisers fear a slump in vital cash-giving to a cancer hospice in the wake of a massive appeal to build a £5 million new cancer home in Bradford.

Finance chiefs at the Sue Ryder Home at Manorlands in Oxenhope want Bradford Health Authority to boost its grant to £500,000 from the present £300,000.

The health authority has already pledged to pay 50 per cent of the running costs of the new Marie Curie centre when it is up and running in Leeds Road, Bradford.

The Marie Curie organisation is moving out of Ilkley and hopes to raise £1 million towards the cost of the centre in a huge fundraising drive across the city Staff who run Manorlands fear it will impact on the support it gets from the public who help raise the lion's share of the £300,000 it collects each year.

""We expect that there will be some impact on what people give to us over the next couple of years," says Irene Senior, chairman of the home's house committee.

"We are well aware we must keep Manorlands at a high profile.

"Bradford Health Authority has pledged 50 per cent of the running costs to the new hospice. We hope they will meet that same figure for us. This is the time when it should happen."

Manorlands costs about £1 million a year to run. A third is granted by the health authority, another third comes from donations and legacies, and the rest through fundraising.

Miss Senior says there is no chance of Manorlands closing because the health authority is aware of the need for it.

Boost for Manorlands, page 11

""A lot of our fundraising comes from the city area and this will bring more pressure onto people who are already giving generously. Only the public will decide in the end how they will give."

Manorlands had developed a very special relationship in Bradford and he was confident that it would continue but there was bound to be competition over fundraising.

There were about 20 support groups throughout the district and at least two thirds were in the Bradford area.

Manorlands was set up 24 years ago and recently received £240,000, raised through Bradford council's bricks and mortar appeal, which was spent on improving facilities.

Its biggest fundraiser was the garden party in the summer which last year raised a record £18,000. The annual Christmas draw reached £11,500.

The organisation is sponsored by the Post Office, Redhead International and the Bradford & Bingley Building Society.

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