Oldbury
Oldbury is a town in Sandwell, West Midlands in England. It is a part of the Black Country, and the administrative centre of the borough of Sandwell. The town's name originates from the Old English 'Ealdenbyrig', which conveys that Oldbury was old even in early English times over 1000 years ago. Eald is Old English for 'old', and Byrig is the plural of 'burh' in Old English, with a burh being a fortification or fortified town. According to the 2011 Census, the town has a permanent population of around 13606 people. Oldbury was part of the ancient parish of Halesowen, a detached part of Shropshire surrounded by Worcestershire and Staffordshire, up until the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844, when it was involved back into Worcestershire after an absence of nine-hundred years. It came to be an Urban District in 1894, receiving Municipal Borough status in 1935. In this time, Oldbury council built several thousand houses, flats and bungalows for some 40 years before its dissolution, the 1000th of which was completed in 1933 at Wallace Road near the border with Rowley Regis. Since the 1980s, the town has seen ongoing development, mainly the development of more retail opportunities. This features Oldbury Green Retail Park, set on the town's ring road, which was built in the middle of the 1990s. This, alongside the advancement of the Merry Hill Shopping Centre discovered about six miles away during the course of the second half of the 1980s, has actually contributed to a decline in the functioning of nearby West Bromwich town centre as a retail centre for locals. For all your home improvements, be sure to find dependable experts in Oldbury to make certain of quality.
