A BAR that was inadvertently operating without planning permission sponsored the council’s safe drinking campaign.

Spa showroom C&K Spas, at Tavistock House, on Canvey’s Charfleets Estate, was granted a licence back in 2007 when it began providing on-site refreshments for people attending training courses at the site.

In the same year it was the official sponsor of Castle Point Council’s Drinkwise campaign, to encourage responsible drinking.

Now it has emerged, despite the close relationship with the council, no one realised the bar did not have planning permission.

Managing director Gareth Crouch said: “It took me by surprise, because when we went through the licence application, it took the best part of a year.

“We had a number of meetings on site and at no point was it mentioned.”

Mr Crouch has now applied for planning permission at a cost of about £20,000.

The council is due to decide by May 7 whether he will be allowed to change the use of the building from just retail to a mixture of retail and leisure.

Mr Crouch said the bar started as a means of providing on-site refreshments and entertainment for course attendees, but in 2008 began opening to the public and did so to help the business survive the recession.

He said: “Luxury items like spas are the first thing to go in a recession and they were not selling as well.

“In the last two years, the bar has become a stream of revenue we couldn’t live without.

“If the bar wasn’t here I would certainly have had to have made redundancies.”

The site is the global training centre for Hawkeye Manufactur-ing and runs courses for people from as far a field as Dubai, Norway and the US in the mechanics.

The 350-capacity bar is regularly hired out for christenings, weddings and other family occasions and is also used as a meeting place by a number of local sports teams.

Council chief executive David Marchant said the council had only been licensing premises since 2005.

He added: “It is a completely separate department to planning and they work independently of each other. This is the case in all local councils, not just Castle Point.

“C&K Spas was keen to support the first Drinkwise campaign held in 2007.

“Without such support, we would not be able to get the important messages about safe and sensible drinking across to the community.”