It’s worth remembering that the original New Town plan always envisaged that George Street would be the primary New Town commercial street. Princes Street and Queen Street were to be wholly residential. The rise of Princes Street as the main shopping street for the city was an unpredicted 19th Century phenomenon. But it was always hampered by being single-sided; indeed, its remarkable that it did achieve such retail pre-eminence.

With the re-assertion of George Stree and to a lesser extent St Andrew Square as shopping destinations and the creation of St James Quarter and Multrees Walk developments, Princes Street is clearly dying with cheap shops and boarded up properties.

The abolition of cars and the introduction of the tram has also impacted. Perhaps surprisingly, there are many occasions when the four-lane street is virtually empty of traffic. There are 39 bus lines that each stop at one of six bus stops between Hanover Street and South Charlotte Street.

The buses often use the tram lane and then pull over onto a continuous bus stop lane. Although the pavement is wider than most, the perception from a pedestrian might be of constant bus traffic with its resultant noise and fumes pollution (albeit electric buses are already arriving). Pushing this further away and obscuring the lower sections of the bus might help in this regard.

The views from the buildings lining the street, from the pavements and from the gardens are second to none. The south facing view is of one of the most iconic with a world-famous castle and the classic view and silhouette of the Old Town. To many around the world that is THE view of Edinburgh. By definition, retail wants people to look AT the shop windows and not in the other direction!

By contrast, the view (particularly of the castle) increases the values of hotels, restaurants, cafes and indeed residential development. And the problem is that for all these potential uses at the moment the ground floor pavement experience is very poor.

Our suggestions for the north side of Princes Street are:

• Close the Frederick Street/Princes Street junction (it is only used by buses and taxis) in the same way that the Castle Street/Princes Street junction was closed some years ago. Both Frederick Street and Castle Street termini would be for the use of taxis. Buses could re-route using Hanover Street.
• Concentrate the bus stops around those two ex-junctions allowing for two buses to be at each bus stop (one loading/unloading and one waiting).
• Introduce a cycle path between buses and pavement
• Between those groups of bus stops extend the pavement out to the tram lane and pave with a significant design.
• Build stone planters/seats against the buses and plant continuous evergreen planting to obscure the lower sections of buses but not the view of the castle and old town etc.
• Plant trees in these areas so soften the street on this side and turn Princes Street into a boulevard, providing genuine shade in the summer.
• Encourage hotels, café and restaurants to open along with residential developments.

Our suggestions for the south side of Princes Street are:

• As on the north side,  concentrate the bus stops into two locations.
• The railings between Princes Street and the gardens are an anachronism dating back to when the gardens were private for the residents. Remove these and light the gardens and open them twenty-four hours a day.
• Extend the pavement out by 8m to create significant paved areas. Small retail pavilions can be located at this level to animate the space and could be used by artists and performers, public art and the Christmas market. For the time being we have shown paving designed by Roberto Burle Marx at the sea front in Rio but would hope that this might eventually be the subject of an international design competition.
• Beneath the paving excavate and lay out space for restaurants and cafes. These would be planned to maximise the tables against the window with plenty of exterior seating each being approximately 350 sq. m gross. The planning of the facades allows pedestrians at the upper level to see the restaurants at the lower level. A “parade of restaurants” could be a major attraction bringing residents as well as tourists to this part of the city by day and by night (where the street is virtually deserted at the moment). Servicing would be from the existing path from the gardens access at the west end.
• Connections between the two levels would remain with new disabled friendly ramps at either end (unlike the current ramps). There would also be a number of new staircases.It could be argued that in summer tress are now blocking the view of the castle from the north side of Princes Street. We propose to remove most of the trees but concentrate them where there are new access staircases.
• A later phase might incorporate a greener bowl of redesigned seating for a redesigned bandstand.