There’s free food at BITMO on all 7 working days between 27 December & 5 January, with free family activities on 5 days. This is funded by BITMO’s Board, which has a majority of Belle Isle tenants, to support the Belle Isle community over the holidays. #TenantManagementWorks

Tenants have told us about drug taking, drug dealing, street drinking and anti-social behaviour (ASB) happening in ginnels near their homes. We are working with the police to make a stronger and safer Belle Isle, and we would like to understand the issues you experience living in your home. We know that crime and ASB can happen anywhere, but at this point we are focussing on the ginnels.

Please take a couple of minutes to complete this online form. The information you give us will be treated with the strictest confidence. We will share it with the police, but we won’t give them your name or address. You will remain anonymous.

BITMO stands for Belle Isle Tenant Management Organisation. The council housing in Belle Isle is run by a Board with a big majority of elected Belle Isle tenants. The money for Belle Isle stays here and is spent on Belle Isle homes, services and support and opportunities for tenants and their families. Because decisions are made by Belle Isle tenants, our services are different from other parts of Leeds.

We have a team of caretakers who do repairs, look after green areas, and take away flytipping. Many landlords have got rid of caretaking services and replaced it with private contractors, who don’t have the same pride in the estates that they work on.

You can come into the housing office to see our housing staff face-to-face, five days a week. When you phone us your call will be answered by a member of our housing team based in Belle Isle who know where your home is. Many landlords have closed their public receptions and take calls through a central call centre.

We have two staff whose job is to help tenants get their full benefit entitlement and extra support where possible – like grants or household goods.

BITMO’s Board set up a Community Fund which pays out up to £70,000 a year to help with financial hardship, for environmental improvements in Belle Isle, as well as paying part of the costs of attending training courses to help you get a new job.

Please visit the BITMO’s GATE community centre, next to the housing office. There’s free tea and coffee, Wi-Fi, and computers. There is free food three times a week and a wide variety of activities. The GATE is open 9am-1pm Monday, Wednesday and Friday and 1-7pm Tuesday and Thursdays and 1-4pm one Saturday a month. You can get help with getting online – either to develop your skills or help accessing online services.  Many of the activities in the GATE are run by Belle Isle residents. You are welcome to join in or be part of setting up a new activity.

If you want to link up with your neighbours, meet other Belle Isle residents who share the same hobby or be involved in running a group, please get in touch with BITMO’s Community Development Team. We have helped residents organise fun days and community clean ups. People have come together to

· go on walks and go fruit picking

· garden and grow food  at the community garden or the community orchard

· cook and serve food with Belle Isle Community Kitchen or at other centres around Belle Isle

· fix and mend things at the Belle Isle repair café

You may have other interests – this could be anything from music and singing to angling to DIY. Please talk to our Community Development Team about any way you would like to be involved. There are volunteering opportunities not just at the BITMO’s GATE community centre but at other community centres and churches around Belle Isle. 

If you are looking to find a new job, go on a training course, develop a small business or go to college, please talk to our Community Development Team. We can offer initial support and help you find the best advice and support. 

Every five years you get a vote to say if you want BITMO to continue. If the tenants vote no, the estate would be managed by Leeds City Council. We think this would mean closing our housing reception, taking away the caretaking team, closing BITMO’s GATE and shutting the Community Fund. Please vote YES to BITMO every five years.

You can be part of running BITMO by becoming a shareholder. This means you can vote at BITMO’s Annual General Meeting, could become a Board Member and are invited to meetings and events during the year.

Every month BITMO sends all tenants an email with useful information about services and activities in Belle Isle. If you are a BITMO tenant and are not getting this email, please send us a message with your email address. You can read November’s email here.

BITMO stands for Belle Isle Tenant Management Organisation. A tenant management organisation (TMO) is an independent legal body that is owned and run by tenants to carry out the management of their council owned housing. TMOs have a tenant led board.

TMOs normally manage their housing better than their landlord and help to improve community spirit, quality of life and tenant satisfaction and bring major improvements to their neighbourhoods.
BITMO is able to respond quickly to what tenants want, and to provide a local and high quality service to the people who live in Belle Isle. One example is the work we did to fence off Belle Isle Circus. Residents told us it was a problem and we solved it.

BITMO gets the same money that the Council would have spent if they were managing Belle Isle. We think we spend the money better because our tenants make the key decisions, not politicians from all over Leeds or managers in a central office. The money we get stays in Belle Isle. If we don’t spend it, it goes into a surplus that we can spend on improvements to the estate, support for families in the school holidays or grants to tenants in need. We fund the BITMO’s GATE community centre and have a housing counter where you can walk in and talk to a member of our team – while most landlords have shut their public offices and ask you to phone a call centre.

Satisfaction among BITMO tenants is higher than for the Leeds Council tenants as a whole. In particular BITMO tenants feel that we listen to them and act on what they think, and that we make a positive difference to the neighbourhood.

We have a very good repairs service provided by Mears, and Sayes. We have worked with both companies for years and we are improving our service all the time. As well as this, we also have a team of caretakers who do minor repairs, maintain green areas, and remove flytipping. Many landlords have got rid of the caretaking service and replaced it with private contractors, who don’t have the same pride in the estates that they work on.

Because we are community based and tenant led, we work right in the heart of the estate, and our office is open five days a week, and the BITMO’s GATE community centre is open until 7pm on Tuesday and Thursday and some Saturdays. We are run by a tenant-led Board and accountable to the residents of Belle Isle, and we are committed to improving services and the community for the people who live here.
We have an active community programme that provides highly valued services and activities to tenants, that run in BITMO’s GATE and across the estate. This ranges from English and Maths tutoring for primary school children to a community garden, consultation on improving Belle Isle’s green spaces to a large programme run jointly with volunteers – cooking breakfasts, growing fruit and vegetables, researching family trees and fixing broken household goods.

If you are a BITMO tenant, please think about becoming a shareholder so you can play a part in the decisions made in BITMO – by voting at the Annual General Meeting or joining the BITMO Board. If you live in Belle Isle please contact us to talk about how you could volunteer with BITMO, another Belle Isle community centre or link up with your neighbours to improve community spirit on your street.

All these benefits for Belle Isle only happen because we are a TMO. There are a lot of TMOs in other parts of the country, but BITMO is the only one in Yorkshire. All council tenants have the right to form a tenant management organisation or to join an existing one. If you would like to find out more about tenant management, get in touch with BITMO’s Community Development Manager Peter Sutton on 07891 274237 or Peter.Sutton@belleisletmo.co.uk

If you are concerned about mould and damp in your home

If you can, take photos of it and send them to us at bitmo.enquiries@belleisletmo.co.uk

If you can’t, please call 0113 378 2188 and we will arrange a visit, but this will take longer than sending us the photos.

We will assess the severity of the mould and if necessary, inspect your home to establish if there is a structural defect that is causing the problem

If there is a structural defect, we will resolve it and apply an anti-fungal wash to remove the mould.

If there is no structural defect it is most likely that the problem is caused by a lack of heating and ventilation.

There is always water vapour in the air, when there is a lot of water vapour in the air it “sits” on a cold spot in a room, if the room is not adequately ventilated, and there isn’t sufficient warm air circulating mould will grow. The only way to get rid of the mould and to prevent it returning is to use a dilution of bleach to clean the mould, and throw the cloth away, taking care not to spread the mould spores, and to increase the heat and ventilation in the room.

Leeds City Council have produced a video giving advice on how to help reduce damp and condensation in your home. You can see it here.

You can also use this form:

Our Tenancy Support and Enforcement Team work to help you live successfully in Belle Isle and help you access the services and resources you need. This could include support and signposting around mental wellbeing, your finances, help to manage and maintain your tenancy, or connecting with your community and neighbourhood within our BITMOs GATE services. Whatever you need we will try our best to help.

If you are 60 or over and feel socially isolated, you may benefit from a weekly call from a friendly voice to check in on you. We run social events at our retirement life developments. If you’d like to find out more, please contact us on 0113 378 2181.

Tenancy Enforcement

Anti-social behaviour and other breaches of tenancy such as untidy gardens, negatively impact on Belle Isle and our community. If you are concerned about ASB we want to hear from you. We work in partnership with Leeds Anti-Social Behaviour Team and the police. If you are aware of crimes being committed or have been the victim of a crime yourself, we can help you to report this to the police and get a resolution.

Reporting crime is an essential part of making sure a community gets the resources it needs.

The police do respond to reports of crime; crime statistics are monitored. Policing is organised around those statistics; and reporting crime online, is quick, easy and we can help you to do it.

We know that some people living in Belle Isle are concerned about crime and often witness crimes taking place, but crime reporting levels are very low. The best way to address crime is to provide the police with the information they need to track it and deal with it.

If you witness any illegal activity such as drug dealing, aggression, intimidation, assault, damage of property, or illegal road use, it is easy and quick to report it online. BITMO staff can help you, and it really will help to get the resources we need to create a safer, stronger Belle Isle.

Please continue to ring 999 in an emergency and use 101 to report non-urgent crime. You may find it easier to report non-urgent crime online, using this link.

For advice and assistance phone Joanne Wood and Martin Rose (Tenancy Support & Enforcement Officers) on 0113 378 2181 or email BITMO’s Tenancy Support and Enforcement Team at asb.enquiries@belleisletmo.co.uk

by BITMO Chief Executive, Deborah Kelly

• The police do respond to reports of crime
• Crime statistics are monitored, and policing is organised around those statistics
• Reporting crime online, is quick easy and we can help you to do it.

My son was assaulted last week and the conversations I’ve had with people following it have been interesting. Those conversations suggested to me that reporting even serious crimes to the police is not taken for granted.

We know that our community in Belle Isle are concerned about crime and that they witness crime, but that crime reporting levels are very low. The best way to address crime is to provide the police with the information they need to track it and deal with it.

If you witness any illegal activity such as drug dealing, aggression, intimidation, assault, damage of property, or illegal road use, it is easy and quick to report it online. BITMO staff can help you, and it really will help to get the resources we need to create a safer stronger Belle Isle.

Please continue to ring 999 in an emergency and use 101 to report non-urgent crime. You may find it easier to report non-urgent crime online, using this link https://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/report-it

BITMO’s housing office and BITMOs GATE will not be open on Thursday 13 January as was scheduled. We apologise for any inconvenience.

The housing office and BITMOs GATE will both be open on Monday 17 and Thursday 20 January for in-person visits. Please note both services are closed for lunch between 12pm and 1pm. This limited service is because of the ongoing issue of transmission of the COVID-19 virus. The telephone service is available Monday to Friday 9am-5pm on 0113 378 2188 (and 0113 376 0499 for out of hours emergencies). BITMO will keep the situation under review and post any updates about opening times for the week starting 24 January on the website and Facebook.

Belle Isle TMO’s telephone service on 0113 378 2188 will be closed from 1pm on 24th December until 10am Wednesday 29th December and from 1pm on Friday 31 December until 8.45am on Tuesday 4 January. On Friday 24th and Friday 31 December from 1pm – 5pm for emergency only call 07312 259474.

If you have an emergency repair from 5pm on 24 December until 29 December or from 5pm on 31 December to 3 January, please call 0113 376 0499. An emergency is something that needs fixing quickly because it is a danger to health and safety. Examples are:
• A damaged door or ground floor window which leaves your property insecure
• A severe leak or burst
• A leak affecting electrics
• An unsafe electric fitting that is sparking or smoking or has bare wires showing
• No heating
If you have a leak, please turn your water supply off at the stop tap until help arrives.

If you have a problem with your power supply check your fuse box and if you have access to the internet check the Northern Power Grid website for power cuts in the area before calling through a repair
If you smell gas please call 0800 111 999. Turn off all appliances. Do not turn switches or sockets on. Open all windows and DO NOT SMOKE.
Lastly may we take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!