Princes Street could have been so different but for lack of ambition

I found the plan frankly bizarre, particularly the walkway at first floor level. This required you to ascend and then descend two flights of stairs at each street junction if you were shopping at that level. It was impractical commercially but gave a more interesting façade.

Fortunately I worked alongside the city’s new Conservation Unit and they duly baulked at this act of architectural vandalism. They immediately listed many of the existing buildings, including the wonderful Jenners building. This left me with an interesting challenge as to how to marry all these frontages into a coherent whole.

The main issue I had with the plan however was it only looked at the street from 9.30am to 5.30pm Monday to Saturday because these were the opening times for most shops in those days. What happened to the street at night or on Sundays simply wasn’t considered.

At the time I was studying for my Masters degree and Jan Gehl was one of my tutors. He taught me to view the street in terms of its social and environmental context rather than as merely an architectural challenge. I concluded that Princes Street needed to be seen in conjunction with Princes Street Gardens and Waverley Station and integrated into these facilities in any masterplan rather than being viewed in isolation.

For the architectural element I suggested simply filling in the walkway and then remodelling the department store façades to integrate better with their immediate Georgian or Victorian neighbours so as to try and give some degree of visual coherence to the overall street frontage. But that had to be done in tandem with more wide-reaching aims such as pedestrianisation of the street and developing over the railway to the south to pull people into the area at nights and weekends.

The idea was to create a cultural "string of pearls" over the railway cuttings with for example the National Portrait Gallery being relocated alongside the National Gallery. There was even a tongue in cheek suggestion of having an opera house as the main pearl in the chain, possibly over Waverley Station. That raised a few eyebrows.

However this time it was the councillors who baulked at the proposals and I was told to limit any visionary ideas to the buildings on Princes Street. Exasperated by the lack of ambition, I quit a month later.

Robert Menzies, Falkirk.

Read more

• Poor old Princes Street – what on Earth has gone wrong?
• When Doctor Who finally dies, the BBC will have blood on its hands
• People from suburban areas outside Glasgow pay lots for city's upkeep

Boost Prestwick, not Heathrow

I note your photograph from 1959 of the Scottish Milk Centre in Gordon Street where the assistant is proudly displaying the cakes and scones made from Scottish butter ("Remember when... Life was a piece of cake for Milk Centre", The Herald, February 28). Ah! Those were the days.

Scottish butter is no longer easy to find; most supermarkets don't stock it. I was in a well-known supermarket in Edinburgh on Saturday. They had butter from England, Ireland, France, Denmark and New Zealand but no Scottish butter could be found. It seems daft to me to import goods that we make or grow ourselves.

Rachel Reeves says a third runway for Heathrow would facilitate the export of Scotch whisky and salmon. I would have thought it would be cheaper to export them from a nearer airport: Prestwick springs to mind.

It would help Scots exporters and save disruption to Londoners while a third Heathrow runway was being built.

Margaret Pennycook, Glasgow.

Foolish train ticket policy

I have a Saltire travel pass which allows free travel on buses and concession fares on trains. To buy a train ticket using my pass I either have to pay at the ticket office or on the train. I cannot use the ScotRail website, app or a ticket machine despite all of the above having a huge drop-down menu of concession schemes.

Querying this with Transport Scotland, I was told that “local councils pay for rail concession schemes and, as such, ask that ScotRail make these only available through in-person channels such as stations and on-train to ensure only those who are entitled to concessionary travel are able to access tickets”.

Given that ScotRail is currently reducing ticket office hours and that during concession hours there is frequently no ticket collector on trains, perhaps it’s time to review this ludicrous policy.

Stuart Neville, Clydebank.

Why should death be a tragedy?

The news that the Vatican has announced the start of night-time prayers for the return to good health of Pope Francis prompts me to ask a simple question that should be readily answerable by one of The Herald's clerical readers.

If Heaven is as desirable a destination as it is declared to be by the faithful, why do they seem to be unanimous in regarding departure from this vale of tears and going to a place of eternal bliss to be something of a tragedy, to be delayed for as long as possible?

Robin Dow, Rothesay.

Don't bank on free speech

I have today received notification from my bank about changes to the terms and conditions for my account. This states that online payment references can no longer include offensive, abusive, threatening or profane words. Whatever has happened to freedom of speech these days?

Scott Simpson, Bearsden.

Our picture of the Scottish Milk Centre in 1959 (Image: Newsquest)

Raising the Barr

David Miller (Letters, February 28) writes of the conundrums (or should it be conundra?) of personal and place names. My old French teacher, Mrs MacDougall, commuted from Barrhead and told of the various pronunciations of her home town by the guard as the train approached the station: Baurheid, Baurhead, Barrheid and Barrhead. She used to have a guess which it would be before each journey.

David Hay, Minard.