It is a building nobody would relish visiting.

But it’s a place with which, sadly, a lot of people in the Isle of Man will become familiar.

Work has started on the new Clatterbridge Cancer Centre in Liverpool, where most Manx cancer patients will be treated.

Isle of Man Anti-Cancer Association chairman Malcolm Clague and Sandy Denning, the charity’s executive officer, have been to the see the building work for themselves.

Building started on the new Clatterbridge Cancer Centre next to the new Royal Liverpool University Hospital in July last year.

The new facility is designed to enable daylight to reach deep into all areas and already has a recognisable footprint.

The basement, where the five radiotherapy machines will be housed, with room for up to three more should they be needed, has been dug out and concreted and three stacks for the lift shaft are well under way - rising by around five feet a day - along with several retaining walls.

When opened in the summer of 2020, the majority of the 200 or so Manx cancer sufferers annually who require radiotherapy or more advanced types of chemotherapy will receive their treatment on this site.

Some will still be treated at an upgraded Wirral site or on their Aintree site.

The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust Hospital awarded the contract for the build to Laing O’Rourke.

Mr Clague and and Mrs Denning met Roger Frost, Laing O’Rouke’s project manager and an avid TT fan, who is on his 11th hospital build.

They said it was very interesting to hear his enthusiasm for the project and of the many logistic and other challenges that he and his team face daily building such a facility in the centre of a city and with the climate that prevails.

Mrs Denning said: ’We were reassured that, although the new Royal Liverpool University Hospital is not yet finished due to delays through the Carillion issue, it is envisaged that it will still be opened in advance of the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre.’

The project is costing £162m, of which £15m needs to be raised from charitable funds.

The Isle of Man Anti-Cancer Association has contributed more than a third of a million pounds to date - funding two of four rooms on site for relatives of seriously-ill patients as well as contributing towards a new treatment facility for prostate cancer.

Katrina Bury, head of the Clatterbridge Cancer Charity, said: ’One in two of us will develop cancer at some point in our lives so this new hospital is vitally important for the people of Merseyside, Cheshire and the Isle of Man.

’This is our one chance in our lifetime to build a new state-of-the art facility for the future.

’We are extremely grateful to the Isle of Man Anti-Cancer Association and their collaboration in this project.’

Mr Clague said: ’This new facility will transform the care of cancer sufferers from the island, both in terms of the treatments delivered and the environs in which it is given.’

The facility is linked by three walkways directly to the new Royal Liverpool Hospital improving access to specialist medical and surgical care when needed.

’It is also very close to the university so that new and innovative treatments will be more readily available for patients. The 85,000 or so who live on this island will have equal access to and benefit from the latest treatments alongside the rest of the population of the North West.

complex

’Providing these types of complex treatments on the island unfortunately is not possible.

’Our funding will directly benefit the people of the island through provision of Relatives rooms on site and a new innovative treatment for prostate cancer.’