The phrase "a belated response" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when acknowledging a reply or reaction that comes later than expected or after a significant delay.
Example: "I apologize for a belated response to your email; I was out of the office for a few days."
Alternatives: "a late reply" or "an overdue response."
Long in the making, the transformation was no doubt a belated response to World War II.
"It's a belated response to what's been going on in the United States".
The changes are a response — a belated response — to the Help America Vote Act.
A belated response to Franklin Foer's How Soccer Explains the World, Paolantonio's cocksure parochialism is embodied in the very title.
"No one's talking about Freddy Adu," hollers Andrew Corcoran, in a belated response to Chris Nemeh's incendiary ignorance.
Mr. Putin's actions were seen by many as a belated response to the sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk in August 2000, which killed all 118 crewmen.
Since the president's re-election, loathers of George W. Bush have had no shortage of cudgels with which to club him: a distressingly belated response to Hurricane Katrina; an experiment in warrantless wiretapping; a modest parade of indictments; a nation-building project so distant from its original intent that our troops are now caught in a proto-civil war.
However, the laptop did have an "I'm a PC" sticker on its cover, a reference to a recent series of ads Microsoft ran that were widely viewed as a somewhat belated response to Apple.
It was a troublingly belated response.
A somewhat belated response to Roger Farmer, who accused me of cribbing from his writings.
This, Edison executives said, was a somewhat belated response to the back-to-basics mood that has dominated the stock market since at least September 2001.
