• I TAKE issue with David Rose’s response to my initial letter concerning the Belsize Village Streatery, (Long live the streatery, August 20).

He takes issue with me calling the streatery initiative “élitist”. Something is élitist when it transgresses democratic participation.

The people affected by the noise and betrayed of a public space have no say in what happens on and to Belsize Square. Why not relocate the streatery to one of the mews or backstreets?

Dr Rose thinks that if inequality is a problem, it predates the streatery. This is true. But my letter was referring to some allegedly inclusive initiative, not to deep-seated societal problems more generally.

I also cannot remember “romanticising about the square before the streatery”. I acknowledge the flowerpots and how much cleaner it has become recently.

Dr Rose “assumes that most made a conscious choice to live there [Belsize Square]”. What an arrogant and disgusting remark. Most of us made that choice prior to a pandemic, most of us would prefer living elsewhere, not in some overheated shoebox.

Dr Rose’s comment is a slap in the face of those who have lost their jobs or struggle to make ends meet, and such is the streatery.

ADRIAN KREUTZ,
NW3