NO, you are not a foot fetishist! You really have seen the name of Stuart Paver connected with the Evening Press Business Awards before.

Already Mr Paver's shoe-shop dot com internet sales service worldwide is in the running for the title. Only this time his entry for Growth Business of the Year is Pavers Ltd, his rapidly expanding national chain of 22 shoe-shops headquartered in York - an organisation ranked as one of the top 20 footwear retailers in the UK.

In just six years expansion has risen from £2.2 million to a projected £13.5 million this year and reinvested profits mean that the company is on target to become one of the most five profitable shoe companies in the UK by 2004.

All the stores are serviced from Pavers' head office on Clifton Moor. The phenomenal expansion has meant the venture outgrowing the warehouse it bought three years ago as well as the one next door added on only 18 months ago. Now it has moved into a new warehouse and head office five times the size, fitted with the latest technology and systems.

The warehouse will lead the thrust to raise the number of Paver outlets from 22 to 40 over the next three years and will be capable eventually of supporting up to 150 shops.

Stuart said: "We have already committed to new outlets in York, Manchester, Brighton, Torquay, Batley Mill, Ashford, Northern Ireland and a second unit in the Lake District over the next nine months."