Life on Reading's Oxford Road will be highlighted in a BBC radio drama

The Oxford Road in Reading, Berkshire, has already been given its own website and festival in an attempt to instil some much-needed community pride.

Now the road - which has been at the centre of a major police crackdown - is to be the focus of a BBC radio drama.

"Oxford Road: The Story" is a 12-part soap opera that will run throughout August on Radio Berkshire.

If any community deserves to tell its own story and get some positive attention for change it's this one Project director Duncan McLarty

Together with 16 live outside broadcasts along the Oxford Road, the drama - to be broadcast from 2 to 29 August - is intended to show a more positive image of the area.

The project's director Duncan McLarty said: "Because we've been working with local people to make the drama, I think we've come up with something really special that just exudes the spirit of the Oxford Road.

"The Oxford Road usually gets publicity for all the wrong reasons.

"We've heard a lot about problems with drugs and prostitution here, but there's so much else going on here that we don't hear about.

"And if any community deserves to tell its own story and get some positive attention for change it's this one."

Sex trade

The storyline of the drama, to be broadcast at 1230 BST every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, will be based on ideas from workshops held with four local community groups.

It will be recorded in real homes and businesses in the road during the next week.

Council bosses have already organised the Oxford Road Community Festival, a week-long series of festivities in September, and set up the Oxford Road website to provide community information.

The area has been the focus of high-profile efforts by Thames Valley Police to tackle drug-dealers and the sex trade over the past year.