COUNCILLORS have allowed a pub to keep its garden renovations after they were carried out without planning permission and significantly raised the height of fence between neighbour.

The Ship pub in East Tilbury village carried out extensive renovations to a beer garden and children's play area without planning consent.

Following a retrospective application, the council received 30 letters of support from residents who felt there had been "much needed improvements". However eight residents opposed the work because of "loss of privacy" and noise nuisance.

However, a neighbour who attended a planning committee meeting when the application was debated, said an overly high fence had an overbearing effect on his garden.

He also feared the level of noise from new play equipment would also affect their lives. And he said neighbours had not been consulted on the work.

But landlady Tracy Simpkins said: "The previous garden over the last couple of years had become unsafe and looked very old so we decided to revamp the beer garden to bring it up to standard that our customers would expect. We also thought about our surrounding neighbours and how we can have the beer garden running without impacting on them.

"As for the height of the fence we wanted to make sure that our neighbours had privacy from our customers in the beer garden and to make the beer garden look pleasant."

Ms Simpkins said the high fence meant customers no longer had a view of the neighbour's washing line and large shed.

She added: "There has always been a playground in the pub. Overall we've made the garden better."

A report to the committee, said: "The development results in no significant or harmful impact to the appearance of the public house or street scene and would not result in unacceptable impacts upon surrounding neighbour amenity or privacy, and has no adverse highway impacts.

"The application has been assessed alongside all relevant adopted Core Strategy policies and found to be compliant and is recommended favourably."