The original housing estate on the site of Galton Village, built by the new County Borough of Warley council in the late 1960s, was known as the West Smethwick Estate. This estate consisted of maisonettes and flats which were made from concrete, and earned it the nickname "Concrete Jungle". By the 1980s, many of the flats were empty or in disrepair, and the estate was blighted by unemployment and crime. At the beginning of the 1990s, Sandwell MBC decided to demolish the estate.