A Kingston church is fighting to hold more concerts, with booze for attendees, to raise cash after revealing it faces bills totalling around £5,000 a month just 'to keep the doors open'. St John the Evangelist Church would be able to sell alcohol and hold live music indoors at events until as late as 10.30pm under the plans.

Applicant Michael Wraight, from charity St John the Evangelist, said the church on Grove Lane is facing rising costs and had recently completed a £2million revamp. He told Kingston Council's licensing committee on May 11 the church has been successfully staging concerts with record shop Banquet Records for the past couple of years under temporary event notices, with a small bar, which "helps to maintain much-needed funds for the church".

Mr Wraight said the church is looking for permission to hold a maximum of 10 more events a year, bringing the total to 30, and "to proceed with the relationship that we have with Banquet Records over the coming years and to ensure the survival of the church". He said the process of holding the events would be easier with the licence.

The charity applied to the council to sell booze at the church from 5pm to 10pm on Mondays to Thursdays, until 10.30pm on Fridays, and from 12pm to 10.30pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Live music could be held indoors from 5pm to 10.30pm on Mondays to Fridays, and 12pm to 10.30pm on Saturdays and Sundays under the plans.

Mr Wraight said: "We've had a near £2million refurbishment programme which has sort of been completed, this with a view to ensuring the longevity of the venue. But with costs increasing for everybody, the church is not exempt from those and we're currently running at around about £5,000 a month bill just to keep the doors open – let alone anything else that may crop up that needs to be done."

He added: "The Diocese of Southwark has decreed that churches do need to be looking at ways of finding revenue streams to try to increase income as well, with church numbers unfortunately dwindling, and Banquet Records have allowed us to be able to bring in that money."

Mr Wraight said the only complaints received by the church across almost 50 events in more than two years was about a private hire of the premises, who would not be able to hire it again.

He said: "To my knowledge, and from discussions that I had with the police, there have been no reported incidents to them or to us from any events that the church have held via Banquet during that time and they've all gone off without any issues." 

Church staff would be present during events, Mr Wraight said, while the bar would not open "for too long and it avoids people having to leave the venue or bring in their own alcohol". He said doors would be closed during concerts, with acts ranging from smaller acoustic sets to full bands – Bombay Bicycle Club and Olly Murs have played at the church before.

But neighbours voiced concerns over the plans. Graham Forrester said: "I've lived here for 40 years… it's been a very peaceful residential area and this application would introduce into the area a further erosion of the peaceful nature of it as a conservation area. It's exporting problems which have in the past been isolated to Kingston town centre."

Nicola Simpson said: "I don't want to stop the church doing their lowkey events. I have attended them in the past, they are lovely events, I trust the people running them. It's just the scope of the application I am wondering how you achieve balance both in ensuring the events are indeed lowkey and that the duration, as well as the frequency, is monitored and maybe considered as part of your response."

A total of 12 letters of objection and seven in support were sent to the council about the application ahead of the meeting.

Mr Wraight said audiences at the events are "extremely respectful" and mostly made up of locals. He said: "We will obviously do our best to space [the events] out throughout the year but we are at the mercy of the music industry unfortunately and an artist can very, very quickly drop a new record that they may want to promote which is why having the premises licence means that we're being able to facilitate what could be a 48, 72-hour notice of a concert." 

The committee's decision is set to be published in the coming days.