The mother of a woman who died of cancer aged just 28 has been talking to people of Norfolk and Suffolk at the region's new £1.5 million palliative care centre named in her daughter's honour.

The Louise Hamilton Centre, based at the James Paget University Hospital in Gorleston, is named after Gorleston-born Louise who died in 1998, two years after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

Today, her mother Roberta Lovick was at the centre as it opens for members of the public to look around ahead of the official opening on March 4.

'This is a joyous place,' said Mrs Lovick, who has been a voice for the Palliative Care East's long-running campaign to open a dedicated support and care facility.

'It's incredibly cheesy but the centre was built on the foundations of love. Everyone involved has put so much love and care in to it.

'I felt, and still feel, that I wasted a lot of time at the end of Louise's life. Had there been a place like this we could have shared more moments together, we could have embraced that time we had left.'

People of Great Yarmouth and Waveney have been raising funds to built the centre since 2006.

When it opens next month, it will bring together more than 20 organisations that support people, both patients and their families, who are living with life-limiting illness, from cancer and heart failure to chronic lung disease and dementia.

• The centre will be open from 10am to 2pm tomorrow (Sunday) for the public to look around.

Visit www.louisehamiltoncentre.co.uk for more information and contact details.