A bid to raise £6m to rebuild a care home for journalists has been given a boost by Kelvin MacKenzie.

The former Sun editor is to spearhead a campaign to raise the money to replace Sandy Cross, the home run by the Newspaper Press Fund, which is now known as NPF: The Journalists’ Charity.

The charity already has pledges of £700,000 and has ring fenced £1m from its own resources to launch the campaign.

It will be up to Kelvin to lead the fight to raise the rest.

He said: “I feel honoured to lead this appeal.

“I will be looking way beyond the newspaper industry to finance the building of this care home. There are many industries who owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to journalists and their work.

“I love journalists and I love their company and to think at the end of their days when life may not have been as good to them as it has been to me, they will be offered support and love is a great thing.”

Based in Dorking in Surrey, the care home was built 35 years ago and no longer meets standards of care or accommodation.

As well as running the home NPF also spends thousands of pounds every week supplementing benefits and income to remove or reduce the distress caused to journalists and their families by ill health, unemployment, sickness, old age or misfortune.

Chairman Nick Jones, whose father spent his final years being cared for at Sandy Cross, said: “I cannot tell you how delighted we are to have Kelvin as our appeal chairman. His unbounded energy and enthusiasm are sure to take us leaps forward.

“We need to raise the money because our core responsibility, giving grants to needy journalists and their dependants, is costing us £250,000 a year, a figure that is rising all the time.

“Now is the time to appeal not only to our members but to all journalists, wherever they are working. This is their chance to make a contribution, by raising funds or giving cash.

“And if they haven’t got any please remember us in your wills, because it will take us many years to get over the cost of the rebuilding.”