Belsize Village

• I TAKE issue with Adrian Kreutz’s contention that the streatery initiative is élitist (Letters, August 6).

He seems to predicate this view on the basis that low-income residents cannot afford to eat at the streatery; though this also presumably means that they could never go to any of the cafés and restaurants before the streatery was set up.

If so, then Belsize Village was an exclusionary space long before the streatery; but I assume that most made a conscious choice to live there.

But with competitively priced local cafés like Roni’s and Oliver’s, with their hot drinks and other offerings matching or beating the price of many of the large corporations, I would like to know if the so-called perturbed residents ever buy a coffee, breakfast, or lunch from Starbucks, Pret, or similar?

Mr Kreutz seems to be romanticising about the square before the streatery. I remember walking through the square every day, with litter everywhere, no flowers to speak of, and, at many times, businesses that were not full to capacity.

Nowadays it is very rare to see litter strewn across the square, or the businesses not full, and the addition of the flowers has beautified the area.

Mr Kreutz speaks of creative solutions but confesses to not being able to think of a way “to fix the issues”. I politely suggest that criticising without proposing solutions isn’t very helpful to anyone.

Long live the streatery.

DR DAVID ROSE
Address supplied