A councillor has highlighted the "irony" of a chemist's opening in a neighbourhood where hundreds face losing their doctors' surgery.

Dr Jaspal Jandu and Partners want to close their Windhill practice, to the dismay of patients who will be transferred to the Keighley Road, Frizinghall, main surgery one and a half miles away.

Councillor Tony Miller (Lab, Windhill and Wrose), who opposes the move, says it is ironic that a pharmacy is to open in nearby Gaisby Lane, Bolton Woods, this month.

The closure, on which there was a public consultation, would affect more than 700 patients. Dr Jandu says the surgery, in a ground-floor 1960s flat, lacks a separate staff toilet, kitchen, space for a patients' couch in the nurse's room and has poor access for the disabled.

Bradford and Airedale Primary Care Trust (PCT) has been urged to keep the surgery open until an alternative can be found. The Trust is to discuss the closure at its board meeting on Tuesday.

Coun Miller said: "It is ironic that a chemist's should be about to open at the same time the surgery is talking about closing.

"They would be a perfect complement to one another."

He said ward councillors were actively seeking suitable premises for the surgery and had found a site near the former Carnegie library.

Shipley Area Committee last month backed the majority of the 67 respondents to the closure consultation, who said patients would struggle to access particular doctors and obtain repeat prescriptions.

The committee recommended the PCT should defer closure until an alternative building could be found to house the surgery.

The PCT told the committee that Dr Jandu's doctors were expecting to increase the number of home visits to Windhill patients too ill to travel to Frizinghall.

Practice manager Lynda Biddiscombe said the practice had done everything within its power to find alternative accommodation.

e-mail: jonathan.walton@bradford.newsquest.co.uk