The D’Auria cafe at Parliament Hill Fields

POPULAR cafés on Hampstead Heath will know if they will be allowed to continue trading ­– or be replaced by a chain within weeks.

Yesterday (Wednesday) was the deadline day for potential offers to run the Parliament Hill Fields and Lido cafés.

The City of London, which manages the Heath, sparked a customer backlash when they have remarketed the contracts this summer.

Long-term operators the D’Auria family at Parliament Fields and the Hoxton Beach husband and wife who team-run the Lido café will now be told in early November whether they are staying or going.

Heath superintendent Bill LoSasso told a City committee meeting on Tuesday that the cafés had been managed on short term agreements since the 2016 – the year it had to retreat from handing over the D’Auria café to the Benugo chain.

The firm later said it had not realised the strength of feeling and no longer wanted to move in after seeing the defiant protests against the switch.

“They are not supposed to be long-term arrange­ments,” said Mr LoSasso.

“Everybody has been aware that there has been a plan for sometime to remarket the cafés. It was at the top of my to-do list when I began in this post.

“We have an obligation to get the best overall result for the Heath charity.”

But committee member Susan Rose said: “The people who run these cafes have an enormous following. A lot of our deliberations here are about being open and inclusive and, in many ways, the most inclusive place on the Heath is the Parliament Hill Fields café.

“It has a strong following from the communities to the south of the Heath, from families on low incomes. This café reflects the needs of its customers and is one of the most  diverse places on the whole Heath.

“It appears to many that the key aspect driving this is profit. It has caused a lot of people to question why this process is going forward and it has been used to question the whole idea of funding of the Heath.”

She added the City should ensure the rationale for re-marketing the cafés was clear to Heath users.

Another member of the consultative committee, John Etheridge, warned that Heath users felt the process had been secretive.

He told the meeting: “People do not feel it has been open nor fair. I want to be sure decisions have not been made already when we meet in November.”

Mr LoSasso said due to commercial reasons a final decision would be taken behind closed doors, but the criteria for future operators was public.

He said: “We recognise the community value of the cafés and that they are hubs for social cohesion. We want to build on its legacy and tradition – that is our desire and it is absolutely not purely profit-driven.”

He said the that he had approached current operators in advance and welcomed their bids to remain in place.