At the beginning of the 1980s, the recently elected Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher created a number of enterprise zones to attract businesses to areas of high unemployment that had resulted from the down-sizing or closure of major industrial concerns. On 29 October 1980, ChancellorGeoffrey Howe announced that Dudley Council's application for an enterprise zone near to Brierley Hill had been successful.[4] The enterprise zone included Merry Hill Farm, a large open green space cherished locally as a haven for wildlife. It was anticipated that the enterprise zone would help replace some of the lost jobs in manufacturing. Incentives for business included a relaxation of planning rules, enhanced capital allowances on industrial and commercial buildings, exemption from Development Land Tax and a ten-year exemption from business rates.[5] In December 1982, the neighbouring Round Oak Steelworks closed with the loss of around 1,300 jobs;[6] later, the enterprise zone was extended to include the Round Oak site.[7] Jobs were created in the small and medium-sized units built by developers on trading estates, but no large-scale manufacturing business had been attracted to the enterprise zone. Oldbury-based, Richardson Developments who had bought both the Merry Hill Farm and Round Oak sites decided to focus on retail and leisure, rather than manufacturing for Merry Hill Farm.[8]
Construction
Shopping centre and retail park
Despite protests from some local residents over construction taking place on the green space, rather than on the former steelworks site, the first phase of the project went ahead and by Christmas 1985 a Queensway furniture store, MFI home furnishings retail warehouse (the very first tenant) and Atlantis Electrical superstore were all trading. Shortly before this, the developers announced plans to triple the amount of retail floorspace at Merry Hill within 18 months, subject to Dudley Council's approval.[9] Early 1986 saw the opening of Halfords[10] and B&Q.
A Carrefourhypermarket opened on 1 July 1986 as part of the first phase of the indoor shopping centre, but closed within 18 months, its place taken by a Gateway supermarket. Asda had replaced Gateway by 1990 and have held the tenancy ever since. The ground floor of the shopping mall was extended during 1987 and an upper shopping level added in early 1988. A separate 10-screen cinema opened in November 1988. The 350-seat Jules Verne food court, which offered a round-the-world eating experience and had a large globe-shaped balloon as its centrepiece, opened in June 1989 on the upper level; however, it closed within five years due to disappointing trade and was subdivided into additional retail units.[12]
Construction of the final phase of the centre was completed in 1989.[13] A Sainsbury's supermarket and Burger King fast-food outlet opened in September and department stores, Debenhams and British Home Stores in November. Marks and Spencer opened on 23 October 1990, two months after the closure of its West Bromwich and Dudley stores on 25 August. This part of the shopping centre was partly remodelled in 1996.[13]
Access to the complex was improved in 1998 by alterations to the two junctions with the A4036 Dudley – Pedmore road.[14] More than 40 houses were demolished to make way for the widened road and re-designed Quarry Bank junction.[citation needed]
Merry Hill had brought about the first free-standing Pizza Hut in the UK, the first drive-thru McDonald's restaurant and the largest Texas Homecare store — all opened during 1986.[15]
While the centre was still being developed in the late 1980s, plans were unveiled to build the world's tallest tower at Merry Hill. The tower would have been 2,000 feet tall, with a hotel at its base, a restaurant halfway up and a nightclub plus observatory at the top. However, plans to build it were scrapped in 1992.[16]
The Waterfront
Redevelopment of the Round Oaks steelworks site did not commence until 1989, when construction began on The Waterfront development, which consisted of Phases 6–8. Phase 6 saw the construction of 69,700 square metres (750,245 sq ft) of offices (the first of which were occupied in December 1990), Phase 7 saw the construction of 6,500 square metres (69,965 sq ft) of restaurants and bars and Phase 8 saw the addition of a 15,800 square metres (170,070 sq ft) business park, which was completed in 1995. Waterfront Way was opened in December 1990 to serve the new complex and provide a road link to the shopping centre and also to the main A461 road between Dudley and Stourbridge.
The Waterfront development created some 4,000 jobs, but the onset of another recession in 2008 saw many businesses vacate the development, leaving a high percentage of office units and other buildings becoming empty. In June 2011, in a bid to bring jobs back to the Waterfront, the area was among the candidates for enterprise zone status once again — 17 years after the original enterprise zone expired.[17]
Ownership
Ownership of the shopping centre has changed hands several times. The initial developer and owner was a business set up by entrepreneurial twin brothers Don and Roy Richardson, who grew up near the site. The 1989 expansion of the centre was a joint venture between the Richardsons and Tony Clegg's publicly listed Mountleigh[18] and by late 1990 the Richardsons had sold their interest in the shopping centre to Mountleigh.[19]
Mountleigh's ownership was short-lived. The Merry Hill Centre was soon put up for sale by Mountleigh's new American owners to pay down the company's debts. In January 1992, a sale was agreed, but fell through possibly due to what were later, unfounded land contamination issues.[20] In May 1992, it was announced that receivers were to be appointed by Mountleigh's bankers[21] and in February 1993 Merry Hill was sold to Elliott Bernerd's London property company, Chelsfield and an undisclosed international partner.[22] Chelsfield had assumed full ownership of the shopping centre by June 1996.[23]Westfield, the Australian-owned shopping centre group took over the Merry Hill Centre as a member of the consortium that acquired Chelsfield in December 2004, but two years later sold 50 per cent to fund manager, Queensland Investment Corporation.[24]
Intu Properties purchased Westfield's 50 per cent in March 2014 and became full owners in June 2016 after buying out Queensland Investment Corporation.[25][26] In June 2020, Intu became Merry Hill's second owner to enter administration, 28 years after Mountleigh.[27]
Prior to the first retail unit opening, planning officials working for Dudley Council warned of the adverse effect the proposed shopping centre would likely have on shops in nearby Brierley Hill, Quarry Bank and Stourbridge.[28] Neighbouring local authorities and West Midlands County Council agreed and sought to curb retail development within the enterprise zone, fearing the effect retail provision at Merry Hill would have on the wider area.[29] The Evening Mail newspaper advised careful consideration but viewed job creation within the enterprise zone as the priority, whether from manufacturing or retail.[30] In February 1986, the chairman of the West Midlands strategic planning committee took the "unprecedented" step of writing to leading retailers, spelling out the "strong opposition" to further expansion of retail at Merry Hill.[31] Environment Secretary Kenneth Baker had given Dudley Council the power to amend the enterprise zone conditions, but despite his urging, Dudley councillors decided by a single vote to back developer Don and Roy Richardson's plans.[31][32]
When the Merry Hill Centre first opened, a number of large retail chains decided to move their stores from surrounding towns into the new shopping centre. These included Marks & Spencer, C&A and Littlewoods.
An Impact Study on the effect Merry Hill had on retailing in nearby towns was commissioned by West Midland local authorities, public transport coordinator CENTRO and the Department of the Environment. The report published in 1993 found Dudley town centre to have been most adversely affected, followed by Stourbridge, Halesowen, Kidderminster and West Bromwich; while Brierley Hill and Cradley Heath had suffered "a qualitative decline in retailing".[33]: ix Merry Hill was found to have had only a limited impact on the larger centres of Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Walsall.[33]: xi The exodus of retailers from Dudley, and to a lesser degree Stourbridge and Halesowen, left a number of large empty premises, leading many shoppers to abandon the town centres for the Merry Hill Centre, affecting the viability of those shops remaining. Marks & Spencer had agreed to become tenants of a store at Merry Hill during the summer of 1989, but had hoped to keep their Dudley and West Bromwich stores open alongside it; however the declining trade in these towns led to both stores being closed on 25 August 1990, some two months before the Merry Hill store opened. British Home Stores opened a store in the complex in November 1989, but its Dudley store experienced a sharp decline in trade and was closed in June of that year.
The completion of Merry Hill resulted in the loss of many big name retailers from nearby town centres, with Dudley being the hardest hit, suffering an estimated 70% decline in retailing market share between 1985 and 1990.[34] However, some retailers kept their stores in nearby towns open, despite opening new stores at Merry Hill.[35] C&A, who had a store at Merry Hill from November 1989 until withdrawing from the UK in 2001, kept their Dudley store open until January 1992. Littlewoods kept their Dudley store open for two months after its Merry Hill replacement opened in November 1989, cashing in on the 1989 Christmas market before closing in January 1990. British Home Stores had intended to continue trading from their Dudley store, but a sharp fall in trade following the Merry Hill store's opening led to the decision to close the Dudley store, which ceased trading in June 1990.
A further blow came when the local council, Dudley Metropolitan Borough, announced that it was bringing in parking charges throughout the area; this turned more shoppers away from local town centres, and towards the Merry Hill Centre, where parking remains free. Though there have since been plans for introducing parking charges at the centre, this has been criticised due to fears of impacting trade.[36]
Employment
The 1993 Impact Study found that Merry Hill employed some 3,370 people of which 80 per cent were women. 69 per cent of the jobs were on a part-time basis.[33]: xii
Tenants
The first retailer to move to Merry Hill was furniture retailer MFI, who opened a retail warehousing unit during the autumn of 1985. MFI would trade from this unit for 23 years until they went into liquidation in December 2008. By Christmas 1985, MFI had been joined by Queensway furniture store and electrical retailer Atlantis. Further retail warehousing units and a shopping mall were already nearing completion by this stage. By the spring of 1986, two retail parks were operating from the site, incorporating retailers including B&Q, Halfords and Texas Homecare, as well as the centre's first indoor shopping mall.
The first phase of the indoor shopping centre opened in April 1986, with Frenchhypermarket giant Carrefour opening a store at the centre on 1 July that year. They sold the store to Gateway Foodmarkets around 18 months later when withdrawing from the UK, and by 1990 it had been taken over by Asda, who already had a store in Brierley Hill town centre as well as several others in the wider Black Country area, but surprisingly, the Brierley Hill store remained open.
A second shopping centre opened on the ground level in 1987 and the centre was expanded further in early 1988 to include an upper level, although the bulk of the centre was opened on 14 November 1989 - by which time it was the largest shopping centre in Europe.[citation needed] By the time of its completion, Merry Hill included several multiple stores including clothing retailers: C&A and Littlewoods, general department store British Home Stores and supermarket chain Sainsburys, as well as numerous smaller retailers. C&A left the UK during 2001 and the store was reoccupied by H&M.
On 23 October 1990, Marks & Spencer opened a new department store at Merry Hill replacing the recently closed stores in nearby Dudley and West Bromwich. In the autumn of 1991, the Marks & Spencer store expanded on the ground level into a vacant neighbouring unit. The Littlewoods store had expanded some years earlier, taking in a former Woolworths store on the upper level; there had been fears that Woolworths would close at least some of their branches in nearby towns when the Merry Hill store opened, but trade from the Woolworths at Merry Hill was relatively disappointing and ironically most of the local Woolworths stores all outlasted the Merry Hill store by some 15 years, only closing when the retailer went into liquidation at the end of 2008. The Littlewoods store was taken over by Marks & Spencer in the late 1990s and converted into a furniture and menswear store, and cafe.
In 2008, Merry Hill Centre, along with nearby Brierley Hill, was redesignated as the 'strategic town centre' of the Dudley Borough, and thus the focus of future local government investment.[37]
The Merry Hill Centre continues to draw most of its trade from the local area. The developers did plan that the centre would attract visitors from across the country, by building coach parks; however, the centre failed to attract nationwide visitors as anticipated and the coach parks were redeveloped with private housing and flats in 2003.
In 15 January 2024, Australian retailer Harvey Norman announced they would be opening their first store in Great Britain in the centre, in the former Debenhams unit.[38]
An elevated monorail was opened at Merry Hill in June 1991, but closed in 1996 as a result of a combination of technical problems and safety concerns (especially the difficulty of evacuation), exacerbated by a dispute between the owners of Merry Hill and The Waterfront, which at the time were owned separately. The infrastructure was later removed, leaving only one disused monorail station and part of the old railings visible—on top of the Marks and Spencer store roof.
The monorail cost £22 million to build, the construction work taking place along with the final phase of the shopping complex in 1988–89, but due to health and safety concerns, it did not open until 19 months after the centre was complete.
There were to be five stations, with the system extending over the canal and terminating close to the site of the former Round Oak railway station where an interchange with a West Midlands Metro extension was proposed. However, only the first four stations were completed; Waterfront East, Central Station, Times Square and Boulevard; with Waterfront West planned as a future development.[39]
The system was officially opened on 1 June 1991. The actual public opening was delayed while Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate investigated evacuation procedures. After operating for a short while, the monorail was temporarily closed again in 1992,[40] but ran sporadically until 1996.[41]
Central Station in 2013. Very well preserved—albeit dust covered
After the system was put up for sale in 1996,[40] the trains and track were transferred in 2001 to the Oasis Shopping Centre, in Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia, to enable expansion of its own monorail system. The remaining monorail station, Central Station, was perfectly preserved, but due to renewed interest in 2016 surrounding the 25th anniversary of its opening artefacts were removed from the station and placed in a memorial exhibition near the lift shaft which once gave access to it. One hundred and fifty commemorative coins were minted and sold at the exhibition.[42]
By the end of the monorail's life at the centre, tickets for adults cost 40p while children under the age of 5 enjoyed free travel on the network. A 'monorail replacement bus' service operated between the UCI Cinema (now Odeon) and The Waterfront car parks once the monorail ceased operating, utilising two Travel Merry Hill owned MCW Metrobuses.
Located on the Upper Mall, Eat Central was opened on October 22, 2009, by TV chef James Martin at the cost of £24 Million[44] to the centres then owners Westfield Group. The food court features a unique lighting system developed by into lighting to lessen the use of more traditional downlights and reused the Eat Central branding from Westfield Derby (Derbion) which opened two years earlier, despite that centre losing the Eat Central branding in 2017.
Merry Hill Eat Central exterior entrance with Westfield branding, Later replaced with Intu branding.
On opening, Eat Central consisted of 16 eatery units in the main food court and 3 two-story restaurant units to the rear. However, this has since been reduced to one unit is being occupied by retailer Max Spielmann and another unit at the entrance to the food court, now being used as extra seating, was previously occupied by the now-defunct retailer Phones 4u.[45] Additionally, one of the 3 restaurant units to the rear has remained empty since opening. Opening day eateries consisted of; Nando's, Pizza Express, Burger King, KFC, Subway, Napoli Italian, Oporto (Chicken & Burgers), Tiffinbites (Asian), Nineteen Ten Mexican, Yangtze Express, Zetao Noodles and Sushi, Crepescape, Muffin Break Expresso and Harpers English classics. The Pizza Express closed in late 2020 as part of a wider restructuring of the company.[46]
Stores
The centre has space for 5 anchors. These currently consist of; Marks & Spencer, Primark, Asda and Next. The centre also had a Debenhams, which was used as a liquidation store in early 2021 as a part of the wider administration process for the company and closed on 15 May 2021.[47] It also contains a range of other major brands and privately operated stores. Notable names are; H&M, TK Maxx, Sports Direct and Boots.
Chronological updates:
November 2020 - Boots saw a Mothercare concession open inside of it.
July 25, 2021 - Hamleys opens its first store in the Black Country located on the Lower Mall in the place previously occupied by Carphone Warehouse.[48]
September 15, 2021 - A conceptual Primark Home location opens, expanding the store further.[49]
September 25, 2021 - The Disney Store closed after 25 years at the centre, this was part of a wider wind down of the global Disney Store operations.[50]
There is a ten-screen Odeon Cinema situated on the retail park. It was the first multiplex cinema in the Dudley borough and the first new one to have been built for some fifty years. It was originally owned by AMC Cinemas and later sold to UCI Cinemas. It was refurbished following the 2005 merger with the Odeon Cinemas chain.[citation needed]
Recent developments
The owners and local council leaders have stated their aim to better connect and integrate Merry Hill with the traditional town centre of Brierley Hill. The Dudley Canal was re-routed in the late-1990s, and between 2002 and 2005, housing has been developed around the complex (several apartment blocks opposite the cinema as well as apartments and houses overlooking Pedmore Road). A new line of the West Midlands Metrotram system was scheduled to reach the site in 2011, but is now planned to open late 2023.[51]
In July 2017, plans were revealed to expand the centre to include more restaurants and to open a new Odeon cinema inside the centre to replace the old multiplex at the retail park. These plans were put forward after Intu acquired the existing Odeon Cinemas building and would have been built at the rear of the centre, connecting to phase 1 of the centre and would have doubled the amount of leisure and entertainment located at the centre from 5% to 10%.[52] However, as of early 2021 the aging multiplex continues to operate on the retail park and no further plans or information has been released following the 2017 announcement.
In 2018, a new 75,000 sq ft flagship Next store opened replacing the Sainsbury's store that closed on 31 December 2016.[53]
The 2021 expansion and improvement
It was announced on September 26, 2021, that the centre would undergo a 5-year improvement and expansion plan with the plan to be the "Ultimate family shopping and leisure destination in the West Midlands". While the expansions are still in the early planning there are plans to divide the centre into new districts focusing on entertainment, fashion & health and wellbeing along with others. Early concept art shows the new area containing a new Odeon cinema and the expansion linking into the existing Eat Central area. Along with this, there are plans to improve connections to The Waterfront and wider surrounding areas.[49]
Transport
Bus station
A bus station has served Merry Hill since its opening, but the current, more substantial bus station was developed in the early 1990s and gives direct connections to towns including Dudley, Halesowen, Stourbridge, Walsall, West Bromwich and Cradley Heath as well as the cities of Birmingham and Wolverhampton.
Partially replaced the 250/251 Merry Hill Circulars and 11/A Merry Hill To Walsall via Dudley and the 81 Merry Hill To Wolverhampton via Dudley & Roseville
Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) will open a new line of the West Midlands Metro from Wednesbury to Brierley Hill, with a new stop at Merry Hill, planned to open in 2023. The line was first planned in 1986 and was expected to be built during the 1990s, but funding and planning difficulties resulted in a 30-year delay to this project becoming a reality.[51] As of February 2024, construction of the Wednesbury to Dudley section was well underway.
In culture
The areas around Next, TK Maxx, H&M, Eat Central, the amphitheatre and outside Debenhams at Merry Hill made an appearance on the popular Cartoon Network show, The Amazing World of Gumball as "Elmore Mall" in the episode called "The Mothers", Eat Central also made an appearance in the episode called "The Burden". Interior and exterior shots of Merry Hill have also featured in subsequent episodes.[54][55]
Working at Merry Hill gave Catherine O'Flynn the inspiration for the fictional Green Oaks centre, the main location in her successful novel What Was Lost.[56][57]
The former Sainsbury's at Merry Hill was featured in the third episode of the first series of the popular children's television programme Rosie and Jim, called "Supermarket" which was originally broadcast on ITV on 17 September 1990, and featured the boat's owner John Cunliffe going shopping at Sainsbury's, with the ragdolls Rosie and Jim in tow.[citation needed]
^ ab"Portsmouth's Monorail - Privately Financed". Fact Sheet No 128. Light Rail Transit Association - UK Development Group. November 2001. Archived from the original on 5 July 2008. Retrieved 9 October 2008. "Merry Hill train terror" was the headline as 20 shoppers waited to be rescued from the monorail jammed 50 feet above ground. [..] this monorail, Von Roll Mark III, was opened on 1 June 1991 at a cost of GBP22m. With its claim of 70 standing passengers per train, a maximum flow of 1800 passengers per hour per direction [..] opening of the monorail was delayed [..] In 1992 the line closed for essential maintenance and in 1996 was reported as being up for sale.
^Williams, Andy (2005). "Andy Williams railway photos - Miscellaneous". Archived from the original on 9 May 2008. Retrieved 9 October 2008. [..] running over what [..] is called a rotary switch. [..] the south end of the line was double-tracked [and] left-hand running was the normal practise. The monorail was operational from 1991 to 1996, when it succumbed to a mixture of technical and safety issues. [..] I seem to recall that the monorail wasn't always operating, [..] it didn't really go anybear useful, and you had to pay to ride it. [..] This monorail was a Von Roll system. It had been out of use for five years when it was dismantled in 2001. The equipment was sold to the operators of the Broadbeach system in Australia [..] there's now little or no evidence that a monorail ever existed
