More than three years after car-alarm millionaire Terry Coleman and his wife Anita paid a record £5.9 million €7.49m) for Sorrento House on Sorrento Terrace, they still have not secured planning permission to alter and extend the listed building.

This week the planners again refused them permission to demolish a single-storey garage and replace it with a new building for garaging and staff quarters. The whole exercise must be highly frustrating for the couple, who have a posh address at Alderly Edge in Cheshire.