Coast & Country, one of the largest regeneration and housing companies in the North East, has been named among the best in the country for delivering enough affordable homes to meet local need.

A report by the housing charity, Shelter has ranked 323 local authorities areas in order of their social housing achievements with Redcar and Cleveland borough taking third place.

According to Shelter, independent experts have said on average an additional 54 affordable homes needed to be provided a year in the Redcar and Cleveland area. But the total has exceeded that target with a provision of 87.

Iain Sim, Chief Executive, said: "Coast & Country's 3rd place ranking in Shelter's affordable housing league table clearly demonstrates that we are achieving our goal of being among the top housing and regeneration companies in the country.

"We have accomplished a great deal since the local authority housing's stock was transferred to our ownership in 2002. More than £130m has been invested in bringing residential properties up to Decent Homes Standard and we currently have 105 high quality affordable homes under development, which are being provided as a range of tenures allowing a variety of people to fulfil their housing aspirations, whether they prefer to buy or rent.

"The pace of Coast & Country's new-build programme will increase in the coming year with tens of millions of pounds being spent on developing homes across the Redcar and Cleveland Borough including Steeple Chase at Redcar and Westfield at Loftus.

"While Coast & Country's principal activity is to provide and manage housing and appropriate support services for people in housing need, our work goes way beyond that through the delivery of many community-based services, which seek to tackle financial exclusion and unemployment and the improvement of estates' general environment and the creation of sustainable communities in conjunction with a range of partner agencies."