Of the many things that exercise islanders, planning decisions – or those to which people take exception – can be the most controversial.

The former Island Development Committee did not have a good reputation in that regard: the popular view, no matter whether justified, was that permission was assured if your face fitted.

With a new planning law in place and a different regime running it, Environment’s planning department is working steadily to become more open and transparent and will be announcing new initiatives shortly.

Yet it has come in for heavy criticism over its refusal to allow Griffins Grotto to continue operating from the former Le Tricoteur premises at St Saviour’s because people simply cannot see what the problem is.

However, no matter how unpopular the decision might be, it is difficult not to have some sympathy for the planners.

The property is designated for industrial use – and the island has little enough of that – and Le Tricoteur sold what it manufactured there. Griffins Grotto does not. It is a pure retailing operation.

Most islanders, and probably the planners too, would be happy to see Griffins Grotto continue there because it is a good little business with loyal customers and staff.

But to let it do so would be to condone a breach of the planning laws. And this isn’t a minor matter of interpretation but one of principle. It is the same, but in reverse, as if a manufacturing workshop started in High Street.

Those same planning regulations were exhaustively debated by the States and approved because, we have to assume, deputies felt they were right for Guernsey.

No matter how much sympathy everyone has for Griffins Grotto, it is in development terms the wrong business in the wrong building.

While that in itself doesn’t matter much – the sky would not fall in if it remained there – breaching the law does.

Environment can only allow it to continue operating if it turns a blind eye. Put it another way, the shop can remain only if the planners actively allow the law to be broken – and leave themselves open to charges of granting favours to those whose face fits.

And that cannot happen.