Now Ms Allinson is going for a fourth planning application for change of use from frocks to food at her King Street shop.

Hasn't she got the message yet?

I hope planning policy can't be changed by simply wearing down the officers and councillors until they limply decide to cave in and let the woman have what she wants.

Apparently there's nothing different in this latest application compared to the one refused in April this year.

And that wasn't much different to the one refused in July 1999 or even the one refused in March 1999.

I would also love to know just how aggressively Ms Allinson has marketed the shop.

Just sticking up a sign with a phone number on it doesn't work in the current marketplace.

Has she done any advertising anywhere?

And why didn't she put the shop on the market through a specialist retail agent?

I know that there are retailers interested in coming to Knutsford and interested in a reasonable square footage.

But you need to take the property to them and sell it.

One of my clients is interested in Knutsford and I asked for details from Ms Allinson.

They arrived a week later. She said she was close to agreeing a deal and didn't even take my phone number to follow up my inquiry.

Was it just a stalling tactic because what she really wants is planning permission so she can sell her lease at a premium and make a tidy profit?

It's funny how she is so 'desperate' but can spend £6,000 on a rash of planning applications.

She could have spent that money on a business course - she might have learned how to make a success of retailing - or used it to buy a stake in Max Clifford's PR company.

After all she must have scrapbooks full of cuttings from the

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