Villagers have started a campaign calling for a local pharmacy to be set up.

Residents in Cuxton want to convince NHS England there is a real need for a pharmacy in the village as, they say, the nearest ones are in Strood or Snodland and not easy to get to without transport.

Post office owner Peter Dhillon has previously, via two pharmaceutical companies, put in two applications to open a pharmacy inside his business.

The applications included detailed plans.

However, the bids were refused on the grounds there was already reasonable choice in the area with 10 pharmacies being within a two-and-a-half-mile radius.

Chris Eede, who has lived in the village for three decades, thinks there is a real need for such a service and has been lobbying villagers to sign the petition in the post office in Bush Road.

A GP surgery in the village does dispense medicine to its patents, but is only allowed to do so to patients who live within a mile of the practice.

Mrs Eede said: “There are more than 1,000 houses in the village and we have a large population of elderly people.

“And if you don’t live within the mile radius you can’t get your prescriptions from there anyway, and it’s not a place where they give out over the counter advice for things like coughs and colds.

“That why we want a pharmacy, somewhere you can go in and get over-the-counter products and advice from a chemist.

“You see all these adverts about using your local pharmacy for prevention and advice to free up the hospitals, so why can’t we have one here?

“We know of one lady in the village who has a disabled daughter and she has to go to three different pharmacies to get her prescriptions as she has to have different drugs and can’t get them from the dispensary in the village. We have had parish council meetings about the matter and most people who live here back the idea and want to see one in the village.”

Mr Dhillon added: “The dispensary at the surgery is only open about 25 hours a week and if you don’t live within a mile, they can’t dispense drugs to you anyway.

“The village needs one and I can’t understand why NHS England say there are 10 in the area which are close by – five of them are over the other side of the river and unless you have a boat they are not easy to get to!”