Covingham Drive is a place for everyone, according to the people who live and work there.

Since its foundations were set in the 1960s, the area has been the perfect place to lay down roots, from families and young couples to pensioners, it has everything that people of all ages could wish for.

Close to Greenbridge Retail Park, and just a 10-minute drive from the town centre, residents’ shopping needs are more than satisfied, as well as being spoilt for choice with a number of shops in Covingham Square, including their very own hairdressers, bookmakers, sandwich shop and newsagents.

And next to the shops stands The Messenger pub.

In July 2007, like many areas in Covingham, the pub was completely flooded despite the staff’s best efforts to keep the water at bay.

The disaster struck the pub just days before a new landlord and his family were due to move in.

Four years later, the pub’s latest landlords – Craig Roberts and partner Emma Loving – are working hard to improve the pub’s reputation and welcome families old and new.

The couple, who took over in October having moved from Andover, have big ambitions for the pub.

“It’s a great pub and it has a really good community feel, everyone is really friendly,” said Craig, 39.

“It seems like a really nice place to live too but it is hard when you are running a pub because you are in it all the time, so we haven’t been able to go out and about to find out much about the area yet.

“We have a lot of regulars here as well as other people coming in for food, and we are trying to turn it around to make it really family friendly. It used to have a bit of a reputation before – it was very sport orientated and quite laddish.

“We are hoping to make it look a bit more attractive from the outside too and we are going to put hanging baskets up and lots of flowers to make it look more welcoming.”

Covingham Park Primary School backs on to the road and headteacher Caroline Polley is full of praise for the school she has been at the helm of since September, 2010.

“I think that the school is a wonderful community of staff, governors, parents, carers and children and I really feel that the community spirit is a huge strength of the school,” she said.

“The children are wonderful, they are a credit to the school.”

The school has 347 children on its books and one of its top priorities is helping the environment and it was awarded a green flag for the third time in 2009.

Year Four pupil Ethan, eight, is one of 20 members of the eco-council and said it was important to be concerned about the environment and keep the school looking nice.

He said: “If we don’t look after it our planet will just look a mess. It’s not really a good show for our school if everyone messes it up for when visitors come and for all the people who live nearby. They might think ‘oh that school is not very good’.”

Nine-year-old Zac, is also part of the eco-council and said he enjoys making bird boxes and helping with recycling at the school.

The school is also the meeting point for Covingham Parish Council.

Resident Ted Ballinger, who chairs North Dorcan Senior Citizens’ Club, moved to Covingham in 1964, just a year after people had started to move in to the area.

He then decided it was where he would stay for the long term.

“They started building about 1962 and the first lot moved in in 1963,” he said.

“There has been a lot of development since.

“Covingham is all over the place now – it goes right down to Dorcan.

Ted said he remembers the floods in 1967 and 2007 which saw many people uprooted from their homes.

Fortunately for him, he was not affected.

“The water just came up to the end of the drive, it didn’t get to the house,” he said.

“We just had to wait and take stuff upstairs that we thought could be damaged.”

Since July 2007, Thames Water and the Environment Agency have been working to prevent further flooding.