Oldbury is a town in Sandwell, West Midlands in England. It is a section of the Black Country, and the administrative centre of the borough of Sandwell. The town's name comes 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 stronghold or fortified town. In accordance with the 2011 Census, the town has a permanent population of around 13606 people. Oldbury belonged to 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 included back into Worcestershire after an absence of nine-hundred years. It came to be an Urban District in 1894, acquiring Municipal Borough status in 1935. In this time, Oldbury council built several thousand homes, 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. Ever since the 1980s, the town has actually seen ongoing expansion, particularly the development of more retail options. This features Oldbury Green Retail Park, situated on the town's ring road, which was created in the middle of the 1990s. This, along with the advancement of the Merry Hill Shopping Centre found roughly six miles away through the second half of the 1980s, has added to a decline in the functioning of nearby West Bromwich town centre as a retail centre for locals. For all of your home refurbishments, make certain to find trusted contractors in Oldbury to make certain of quality.
