A THREE-YEAR appeal to raise £600,000 to help cancer sufferers has hit its target.

Fundraisers say they are amazed at how quickly the money has been raised.

The cash will mean that support and care for patients with life-limiting cancers in County Durham will dramatically improve.

Now, the charity wants to raise £750,000 before the appeal closes.

Extra cash will be used to further expand services.

When it was launched in October 2001, the Macmillan County Durham Appeal set out to raise £600,000 in three years.

The supporters who filed into Auckland Castle, at Bishop Auckland, to attend the official launch were told that the county was alone in England in not having a medical consultant dedicated to terminally ill patients.

Durham had fallen so far behind the rest of the country that a huge effort was required to bridge the gap, it was said.

The response from the public was so great that the target was achieved eight months early.

Macmillan has already appointed many of the key personnel needed to improve care.

Instead of only one consultant in palliative care - which relieves symptoms of terminal illness - Macmillan has appointed two.

The cash has also allowed Macmillan to expand the number of specialist nurses working in the community.

Caroline Peacock, the joint appeal manager, from Hamsterley, in Weardale, said: "It is wonderful news and a fantastic achievement."

She thanked The Northern Echo, adding: "It is true to say that we could not have done this without the help of the newspaper."

Mrs Peacock said she had been moved at the way in which the appeal had touched many people who had little to give. "We have found that those who have the least are often those who give the most," she said.

Apart from big fundraising events such as concerts, antique fairs, marathons, golf days, fashion shows and garden open days, cash had flowed in from pubs, clubs and collecting tins.

The biggest single donation - £50,000 - came from millionaire businessman Sir Tom Cowie, whose wife is patron of the appeal.