In the past 12 months, she has fought a costly battle with her landlord to get the lease changed on her shop and almost taken an advertising agency to court.

Her shop in Imperial Arcade, Brighton, has been flooded and she is now embroiled in a dispute with the council over newly-painted double yellow lines.

"I naively opened the doors, champagne bottles in hand, looking forward to becoming one of Brighton's elite business owners," she recalls.

"But I had no idea what was around the corner."

The intention was to have the grooming parlour in the basement and a shop above selling funky accessories like dog collars and leads.

But getting her landlord to allow animal grooming on the premises was proving difficult so she decided to open the shop and worry about the salon later.

Christmas was a "fantastic way to start the financial year", says Roison, but the good start was undone by months of wrangling with her landlord over the lease.

"I desperately needed to get the grooming salon off the ground to bring in some much-needed income to offset the rent and the bills which were starting to mount up."

Eventually, her solicitors thrashed out an agreement with Roison's landlord and she was given the go-ahead to use the basement for grooming cats and dogs.

Once she had set an opening date for the parlour, however, she discovered pools of water in the basement, the result of a leak in a neighbouring newsagents.

This set her back weeks and she was only able to claim 75 per cent of the cost from her insurers. The salon was finally opened in April.

But there was more to come. A row with and ad agency was one thing, then the council painted double-yellow lines over a much-used loading bay in Dyke Road.

This was almost the last straw for Roison.

"On a daily basis at least one of us here in the Arcade gets a ticket - we are only trying to get stock into our shops to trade and keep our customers happy.

"The amount we pay in business rates obviously bears no weight. The council clearly thinks we can afford to pay parking tickets just for unloading our stock."

But despite everything, business is picking up, and she is determined to carry on.

"I have worked seven days a week for the best part of the year and feel ten years older.

"I still have not taken a salary but I would not go back to working for someone again.

"I am still excited at the thought of opening the shop door every morning and get a kick out of seeing customers return. They have made this whole experience worthwhile."

Wednesday, October 26, 2005