• CAMDEN Council’s plans for a streatery on Winchester Road, involving the removal of 14 metres of paid-for parking to allow a set of tables, chairs and other café furniture to be installed and used for outdoor eating, is possibly the most cretinous proposal that this council has ever made!

Both sides of Winchester Road have flats where people live, some frail and elderly, others with children and babies, with the rest trying to get some peace in their homes. The last thing any of those people want is more noise and disturbance right outside their windows.

Do the planners really not know this; are they so stupid they don’t realise that noise and disturbance will inevitably increase?

For a start there will be a few dozen people, maybe over 100, milling around, chatting and drinking – and, no doubt, some partying – and we know Camden will do nothing to control the noise or other activities.

Another negative impact on those people living in the area is that they will probably also have to move their cars, and the area is already jam-packed.

In addition all local residents in Belsize Park will have to find other ways of getting out of the area; this displaced traffic will spread the impact of this stupid scheme.

The depth of Camden’s stupidity is completed by the fact that, just around the corner, barely 100 yards away, is the completely underused market square between the Hampstead Theatre and the Central School of Speech and Drama.

That would be an ideal place for such a facility, nobody lives near the area. Are the council officers so ignorant that they don’t know this?

Perhaps in the dark basement offices where such stupid plans are hatched, they don’t, but now they do. Please use your brains for once: don’t just look at road maps, why not come and visit the area?

And I hope our councillors will make sure this plan is stopped, money has already been wasted. Why were our councillors not asked before the idea went ahead? They at least have some knowledge of the area. Or perhaps they were asked, in which case my anger is complete!

DAVID REED
Eton Avenue, NW3