Princes Street - Shopping

Shopping

Several UK high street brands such as Boots, BHS, Debenhams, House of Fraser, Marks & Spencer, Topman and Topshop are located along Princes Street. Jenners department store (now owned by House of Fraser) is an Edinburgh institution, surviving the disappearance of many other local department stores, such as Patrick Thompson's. There has been controversy over buildings from the latter half of the 20th century on Princes Street. This has prompted plans to demolish the BHS and the Marks & Spencer buildings, in an effort to improve the status of the street. Another problem has been that upper floors are often used for storage, rather than as office, retail or living space. At an early stage in post-World War II designs for the street, a "high level walkway" was planned, as a further shopping frontage for the first floor level, in lieu of the other side of the street. However the walkway as built was never more than a number of isolated balconies and in practice the Royal Bank of Scotland was the only business to maintain a frontage at this level for any length of time; that branch of the bank closed early in the 21st century, leaving the upper walkway largely forgotten.