ANGRY residents today pledged to fight plans to close a village surgery and move it into a neighbouring town.

The proposal to relocate the doctor's practice in Market Street, Edenfield, to the new St James Medical Centre, Burnley Road, Rawtenstall, has met with fierce opposition from patients and could also see the popular village pharmacy close.

If it goes ahead, villagers may have to catch two buses to see the doctor.

The practice said the plans were aimed at reducing running costs but that it also faced a huge bill for work required to bring the surgery up to standard under the Disability and Discrimination Act.

A public meeting has now been organised by Edenfield's Village Residents' Association for Monday at the community centre in Exchange Street at 8pm to discuss their response to the proposals.

Chemist Chris Bishop has run the Village Pharmacy in Market Street for 15 years and says more than 90 per cent of his business comes from the surgery.

He said: "If the surgery goes, so does my business.

"This is my first solo business, before this I worked for a large company and I spent four years looking for the right pharmacy before I settled on Edenfield.

"I wanted a small pharmacy allied to a one-doctor practice because I could see the future being one where we would both be working very closely together.

"The pharmacist would be giving advice to GPs and we are doing that now in more routine work. Nurses would be prescribing some drugs as they are now and there will come a time when pharmacists prescribe drugs for regular repeats.

"This is why I chose to live in a village."

He said in Edenfield patients can make an appointment to see a particular GP because the surgery is manned on a rota basis.

At Rawtenstall, they would be given an appointment but not be able to request a specific doctor.

He said: "Two reasons have been given for the proposal. Firstly, efficiency, to reduce running costs, and secondly the Disability and Discrimination Act because of the amount of work needed at the surgery.

"If the premises don't meet the requirements surely getting two buses to get to see a doctor doesn't!"

Mr Bishop said the only way his pharmacy could survive was by collecting repeat prescriptions daily from Rawtenstall, but that would inconvenience everyone.

Florence Atkinson, of Bury Road, Edenfield, has been a patient at the surgery in Market Street for 38 years.

She said she was "outraged" at the proposal.

She said: "I only found out about it last week and I have filled in forms at the pharmacy saying don't close.

"We can't really do without the chemist, it is as vital as the surgery."

Mr Bishop said a questionnaire had gone out in the village from Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Primary Care Trust but the questions were ambiguous and he has had a lot of residents in his pharmacy asking for help to fill it in.

In addition many villagers have not received it and so he has copied the questionnaire and also printed a letter objecting to the plans which are at his business for residents to sign.

Chairman of Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Community Health Council, Don Pacey, said: "We have not got a view for or against but we are aware of the situation and will be taking part in discussions."

Practice manager at St James Medical Centre, Mrs Beverley White, was unavailable for comment.

Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Primary Care Trust primary and community care development manager Max Harrison said if the weight of public feeling was in favour of retaining a surgery, even if the existing doctors still went ahead and moved out, the primary care trust would have to look to make alternative arrangements.

He said: "The doctors have said they can provide better services from one site and the Primary Care Trust is concerned about patient access to that surgery which is privately owned by the GPs.

"There are some 3 to 4,000 patients served by that surgery which is more than a viable practice for two doctors."

He said the response from the public will be collated at the end of July and a meeting will be hekld with the practice early in August and the Community Health Council.

He stressed no decision had been made.