The Blackheath Joint Working Party (BJWP) is an advisory group made up of Councillors, Council officers and representatives of local amenity societies including the Westcombe Society. They meet a number of times a year to discuss anything to do with the heath such as Events, Nature Conservation and general use and upkeep of the heath. They act as a forum for the Councils and other organisations who have an interest in the heath. Their views are taken into account when the local Councils make decisions about the heath.
If you would like to know more or have questions about the heath please come along to their open meeting at 7pm on Tuesday 18 February 2020. The meeting will be held in the Old Bakehouse in Blackheath which is behind the Age Exchange and can be accessed from Bennett Park.
FAO Mike Norton: 1) I am unable to attend this meeting – Tuesdays are never possible – but am concerned that the BJWP has made no attempt to to let the public know the AGM will be taking place in just a week’s time. Minutes, agendas and notices of meetings posted on Lewisham’s InMyArea website only go as far as September 2019. The only people to have been informed about the AGM are Blackheath and Westcombe Society members, The BJWP’s remit includes consulting local residents and users of the Heath as well as keeping them informed. This is clearly not the case at present:. Would you be able to raise this at the AGM on 18 February?
2) I am deeply concerned that the BJWP has given permission for an unregistered, uninsured, unmonitored outdoor nursery school – Forries Education – to begin trading at Eliot Pits on Blackheath as from Easter 2020. Again, there has been no consultation or attempt to keep the public informed. As the BJWP and the Blackheath Society are aware, it is a criminal offence to run a nursery school without Ofsted accreditation, which Forries does not have. Safequarding issues relating to chldren are being ignored and I would like to suggest that the BJWP be stripped of any right to give consent to activities on the Heath where Ofsted registration is required. Such applications should surely be referred to a more appropriate body. Again, would you be able to raise this issue on 18 February?