We are blessed with builders in this region.

As we continue to redraw our own boundaries as a region, we have drawn on the formidable skills of people who can build industries, relationships and the economic foundations that we need to plan much further ahead.

But as more and more people want to call Teesside their home, we are becoming more aware of the need to provided homes and communities that they can grow in and where they feel they are progressing.

As part of our Level Up campaign we are highlighting the need to look after our most valuable and trusted assets - the people in our own organisations who have got us where we are today.

Alan Smith, Executive Director of Investment, Growth and Performance at believe housing, one of our Level Up partners, told us in a recent interview: “Having a good-quality, warm, safe home is very important and there are huge amounts of benefits just from that, but on its own that’s not enough. Strength of community and community pride is what it’s really about, and that wider role of access to good education, good health, employment, and good facilities. That’s where people want to live; that’s what we all want to be part of; that’s what we’re trying to create.”

And as we find out in this supplement today, that sort of insight and support is shared by Newcastle-based Karbon Homes.

As a boy growing up in County Durham, Chief Executive Paul Fiddaman saw at first-hand the social challenges faced by a mining community forced to reinvent itself after it lost its economic purpose.

That is at the heart of this new region - that we were sideswiped by steel, but then got back up again and started to hit back. The feeling that the region was a community fighting for the same thing was hugely important and where families were housed and whether that made them feel valued and cared for was a deciding factor in how much passion they put into that fight.

So the sort of housing we aim for is vital. We need to house the boardroom as well as the shopfloor and make each feel they are making the right decision by investing in their own future here and the future of the region.