The Blackbird Leys Estate was built mainly in the 1950s and 1960s to meet the then pressing need for housing. It was part of a plan to re-house people from the dilapidated inner city. This included large-scale clearance of a site near to where the Oxford Ice Rink was built (The Oxpens). Many of the families that moved onto the estate originally came from this area. It was also a convenient site for factory workers at the Morris Motors Limited plant in nearby Cowley.