Unprincely Street

Stephen Jardine draws attention to the remorseless decline of Princes Street (“Here’s how to save Edinburgh’s Princes Street from Sports Direct ,”1 July) which he correctly dates from the fateful decision of the Princes Street panel to demolish such important Victorian buildings as the Boots block.

He could have added Sir Charles Barry’s Scottish Equitable Building and William Burn’s New Club, wateringhole of a civic haute bourgeoisie which, with hindsight, really ought to have known better.

He also refers to the very real threat posed to the retail future of the street by the St James development, which includes a “designer” shop - ping mall allegedly based on Milan’ sG all eriad’ V it toria Emanuel ea swell as the infamous“copper spiral” hotel. The backers of this scheme were TIA A, a Nor th Caroli

na pension fund with around $1 trillion under management.

After UK Communities Minister Eric Pickles had turned down that same developer’s proposals for the conversion of London’s Smithfield Market, Edinburgh council and the Scottish Government not only rolled out the red carpet but also provided a subsidy equal to $100 million to help kickstart a development which was clearly going to compete with retailers on Princes Street and George Street.

This raises two critical questions. Firstly, in becoming effective co -investors in the St James project were our local and national political establishments compromising their roles as independent planning authorities? Secondly, in providing a $100m so-called “growth accelerator model” subsidy was the Scottish Government in breach of Europe’s state aid and competition regulations?

In the latter case there are mechanisms such as the Market Economy Investor Principle which allow state aid rules to be set aside under Ar ticle 107(3) of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union in areas where “the standard of living is abnormally low, or where there is serious under-employment”, but this is clearly does not apply in Edinburgh’s central district.

Perhaps the New Club’s QC members could worry this particular bone over the port?

DAVID J BLACK Glanville Place, Edinburgh