York's hospice is to launch a £2million appeal for the year 2000 - with the backing of the Evening Press.

As part of the paper's biggest ever challenge, it will join St Leonard's Hospice's effort to to build an extension to its Tadcaster Road site.

It will form part of York's Millennium celebrations, which were beginning to take shape this afternoon as business and community leaders met to discuss how the city will mark the year 2000.

St Leonard's Hospice, which has been caring for patients for 13 years, wants to expand its service in the next century. Evening Press editor Liz Page was this afternoon announcing to a meeting at the Tempest Anderson Hall that the newspaper will adopt the project as its Millennium appeal. It will be launched in the autumn.

The City of York Council wants to use the new Millennium as a "fresh start", and plans to use the success of the Ecofin conference as a springboard.

The dozens of popular community events staged around the city during Ecofin are being seen as a dry run for Millennium celebrations.

About 50 leading figures from the voluntary, business and public sectors in York were invited to today's summit. The city council, which was hosting the meeting, wants to start the ball rolling by setting up a steering committee responsible for marking the year 2000.

Peter Berry, assistant director of the city council, said: "One of the great things about Ecofin was the community involvement.

"We want to have an opportunity for as many people as possible to participate so that everyone can celebrate at different levels, whether it is central street parties or events in the parishes."

He said it was a time to celebrate but also an opportunity for change.

"We need to examine how it can improve life in the city - it is a fresh start," he said.

"Ecofin worked because there was co-operation and partnership. Now we want to see how we can market the city in new and more positive ways."

Mr Berry said the results of an economic impact survey conducted to find out how much York had benefited from hosting the Ecofin summit would be presented to this afternoon's meeting.

Meanwhile, the Church of England was also debating how to mark the Millennium this afternoon, at the General Synod being held in York.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.