Tipton Green

[3] With the increasing development of factories around Tipton Green in the 19th century, came hundreds of houses to provide homes for the workers.

These facilities were closed in the summer of 2002 due to funding difficulties with Sandwell Council, only to be re-opened within two years following extensive local campaigning[5] and significant refurbishment to the building’s interior.

By the early 1960s, however, Owen Street was falling into disrepair and Tipton Borough Council decided that redevelopment was necessary.

However, these plans were shelved when the town's council was abolished in 1966, and the area remained largely unchanged for more than a decade longer.

More demolition took part on the opposite side of Owen Street later in the 1980s, mostly to make way for the town's new job centre and the new Tipton & Coseley Building Society HQ which were built in the early 1990s.

Further change came at the end of the decade when the community centre and early 1980s Midcounties Co-Operative supermarket were demolished within 20 years of being built to make way for new retail units and a library, which relocated from the Victoria Road building that had been in use since 1906.

Bean Industries occupied a large site - which straddled the border with Coseley – in the area from the 1920s until the firm closed down in October 2005.

The Bean offices on Sedgley Road West, built in the early 1920s, were purchased by Tipton council in 1935 as its new headquarters and remained there until the abolition of the local authority in April 1966.

The largest interwar council development in Tipton Green occurred on the Shrubbery Estate in the early 1930s; nearly 200 three-bedroomed houses were built on land between Dudley Road and the embankment of the Dudley-Bilston railway line.

A street built nearby some 30 years later was named Cathedral Close in memory of this iconic building.

The area was almost completely redeveloped in the late 1970s, with the historic "Fountain Inn" public house being one of the few old buildings to survive.

The church was designed by J. H. Gibbons and consists of English bond brickwork with a tiled roof.

[6] Victoria Park is the largest open space in the ward, covering an area of 13.78 hectares (34 acres).

[7] Tipton Green has been home to the town's railway station since the mid 19th century, giving it direct passenger train links with Birmingham and Wolverhampton.

The house was moved in 1876 to a new location at the locks and was eventually demolished in 1926, apparently in the same condition it was in when first constructed.

In July 2008, as the British economy was sliding into recession, it was reported that 9.6% of Tipton Green's residents were unemployed - well above the national average of 5.8% but not as high as the 10.9% rate in neighbouring Princes End.