“BE PREPARED to be wowed” – that is the message from the chairman of a hospice which will shortly be reopening.

Work is nearing completion on a £2.8m extension and revamp of St Kentigern Hospice in St Asaph which is expected to be fully operational again by March.

The scheme will provide an extra four in-patient beds, taking the total to 12, along with offices and will also be open to patients and members of the public.

The new investment will include premises for wider activities and an educational area.

The project will also include a café, which will be open to the public as well as patients and relatives, as well as new office space.

The hospice, which opened in 1995, closed 12 months ago for the work to be carried out and most of the staff were temporarily redeployed, some of them helping in the hospice’s charity shops.

At the annual meeting chairman Jim O’Rourke thanked the staff, helpers, patients and their families for their patience and said the project was coming in virtually on schedule and on budget.

Soft furnishings are being delivered next week and open days are expected to be held in January.

“I guarantee you will be ‘wowed’,” he said. “It is bright and airy and modern, and you get the feeling it is going to be a great place in which to be cared for.”

Mr O’Toole said some new volunteers had already come forward and he hoped that those who had had little to do over the past 12 months would return.

The fact that the hospice was closed hit income from donations and legacies, with the result that for the first time in seven years the charity suffered a loss.

In 2018 the sum received from those two sources was £1.5m but over the past year it fell to £251,039.