WHEN Ky Wilkinson put some Christmas lights up on the sign to his business, the last thing he expected to receive was a solicitor’s letter.

But just two days after he put up the lights at the Tor Spa Retreat in Ickham, near Canterbury, a letter came through the post from solicitors Furley Page.

It warned Mr Wilkinson, 31, that the sign was not allowed to be illuminated and requested him to remove the lights. The sign is on land owned by Nicholas and Anne Graham, who instructed the solicitors to write the letter.

Mr Wilkinson, who manages the spa, said: "The whole village has got lights up so I thought that just as a token gesture to light the sign up and do something Christmassy. I wanted people to see that we were doing something to celebrate Chrismas."

Mrs Graham, who lives next to the spa, said Mr Wilkinson should not have put up the lights.

"The spa sign is very crumbly and what I did not want to see was a lot of clashing lights," she said.

"It’s in a country lane and it looked vulgar. When you are given permission for a sign on someone else’s property, you don’t go putting lights all over it."

Ickham is in a conservation area and a city council spokesman confirmed that noticeboards in such areas could not be illuminated – something Mr Wilkinson says he was unaware of.

The lights are no longer on the sign.