RESIDENTS in a village in Rossendale are resigned that they will be losing their doctors' surgery, despite protests.

At a meeting of the practice of Dr Bunting and partners from Market Street, Edenfield, and a residents' association sub-committee, villagers said they were left in no doubt the doctors intended to leave.

Pharmacist in the village Chris Bishop, who is also on the sub-committee, said: "At least now we know that they are going to go regardless because at the meeting they said even if they were new nurses and new premises they don't want to stay in the village."

The doctors want to relocate into St James Medical Centre in Burnley Road, Rawtenstall, two bus journeys from the present surgery. They told the meeting the move was for safety reasons and to improve facilities.

Burnley Pendle and Rossendale Primary Care Trust distributed a questionnaire to the surgery's more than 3,000 patients about the proposal.

But Mr Bishop said it was ambiguous he had to help a number of people fill it in and as a result he was not surprised with the results.

Only 1,665 were returned and 898 said they could not consider any other service with 767 saying they would.

Mr Bishop said: "People could not understand what they were being asked about. Even if there is another service we do not know at this stage what it will involve and what will be provided.

"There is talk of another questionnaire being issued and hopefully the questions will be more straight forward."

Max Harrison, primary and community care development manager for Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Primary Care Trust, was also at the meeting and said the next move would be a meeting with the residents' association and members of the trust to see what could be put in place.

He said they were waiting for an application to close the surgery from Dr Bunting and may hold further questionnaires to ensure people's views are known.