Although I was born in Jamaica and lived in Connecticut, in the US, I have been working in the North-East for 15 years and I have always detected a sense of Northern pride in areas such as music, sport and culture.

There is also a general feeling for a lot of people that most of the political decisions are shifted and focused towards the South and the capital in particular, which obviously helps to perpetuate that pride in the North.

I like and support the idea of regional government.

I have seen similar models of regional state governments work very well in other areas around the world, such as the US, and also, of course, in Scotland and Wales, where I think it contributes to people feeling part of the process of government.

They feel that they have a major input in spending the national government resources that are going into their areas.

This is something that is missing in the North-East at the moment.

I think a regional government, if people vote for it, should have a major strategic voice. It has to be a strong workable entity, which supports the needs of the region.

We do have elected people at the moment and they are doing their best, but we need to enhance that process by providing another regional structural tier with more of a strategic and developmental overview for the North-East region.

I agree with Sir John Hall, when he said recently that one of the areas in which we can develop is sport.

I do a lot of work with Sport England and one of the rare times when everyone from the North-East comes together is when we are bidding for more resources, although this is normally on an individual basis.

I feel that we are at our most effective when we can set aside the traditional geographical rivalries to work together.

Those rivalries are important to sport and must remain but if you look at how intense they are between different areas and different teams, then they can also be a very powerful force if we can harness this energy and all work together for the improvement of the region.

I feel that there is a case for retaining county councils when people vote on what they want to happen to local government as part of the referendum in October.

I think there is a need for one large body to represent the view of sub-regions, such as the Tees Valley.

The original areas of Teesside, of course, were given four unitary district councils after central Government broke up Cleveland County Council, but I felt that was an ill-thought-out plan when it happened based on a political advantage mentality.

I am also very concerned that a lot of people do not realise how important the debate on regional government is and that, when it comes to the referendum in October, they will not know enough to make an informed decision.

This is a crucially important vote for the North-East, I feel people need to understand what they will be voting on and what exactly are the advantages and disadvantages of such a vote.

It is an important debate that we need to have.

* Tony Hanson is the coach of the Teesside Mohawks basketball team, director of Hoop Dreams (a community sports educational initiative), chairman of the Middlesbrough Black and Ethnic Minorities (BEM) and regional sports and physical activity manager for Becon, a regional BEM network organisatio