SUPPORTERS of the Friarage Hospital at Northallerton are celebrating after raising £700,000 in just two years towards a new children's ward.

The success of the effort by the League of Friends represents more good news for the Friarage following the announcement last week that it had been placed among the top 16 hospitals in Britain in a survey by a national Sunday newspaper.

The present children's ward, housed in a wooden hut, will be replaced early next year by a new one when the paediatric unit is incorporated in a three-storey block planned at the Friarage, which has been progressively upgraded over the past three decades.

League of Friends chairman Brian Thompson said: "We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all those who have given their time and money so generously to this appeal."

The £700,000 target was reached through a mixture of legacies, donations, the proceeds of public events including a golf tournament at Romanby Golf Club organised by league publicity officer John Carr and collections and stalls run by the league, which has a shop at the Friarage.

The league previously raised £500,000 for the Friarage millennium building and Mr Carr said: "As soon as we finished that appeal we began another one for the children's ward.

"We could never have raised that amount of money with our little stalls. We have a lot of fund raising events but a lot of people up in the Dales are working all the time for the league, including some ladies who do knitting for our shop. We have been delighted by the response of local people."

The league, which holds a spring fair at Northallerton Town Hall on Saturday, April 20, expects to announce its next project soon.

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