Merry Hill (formerly Intu Merry Hill, Westfield Merry Hill and The Merry Hill Shopping Centre) is a large shopping complex in Brierley Hill near Dudley, England. It was developed between 1985 and 1990, with several subsequent expansion and renovation projects. The centre has more than 200 shops, a retail park, cinema, food court, arcade and more than 10,000 parking spaces, and is anchored by Harvey Norman, Marks & Spencer, Primark, Asda and Next.
Adjacent to the main shopping mall is a marina called The Waterfront accommodating a number of bars, restaurants, the studios of Black Country Radio, and the Headquarters and Control Room of West Midlands Ambulance Service. The Dudley No.1 Canal passes through The Waterfront and along the edge of the shopping centre before descending to Delph Locks.
The centre's original developers and owners were Richardson Developments. Savills carry out the day-to-day management of Merry Hill and strategic planning and asset management is by Sovereign Centros on behalf of the current owners.
History
Background 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, Chancellor Geoffrey Howe announced that Dudley Council's application for an enterprise zone near to Brierley Hill had been successful. 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.
In December 1982, the neighbouring Round Oak Steelworks closed with the loss of around 1,300 jobs; later, the enterprise zone was extended to include the Round Oak site. 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.
The building contract for the shopping malls was awarded to Tarmac Construction.
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. 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. The Evening Mail newspaper advised careful consideration but viewed job creation within the enterprise zone as the priority, whether from manufacturing or retail.
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.
1980s–1990s 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, an MFI home furnishings retail warehouse (the very first tenant) and an 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. Early 1986 saw the opening of Halfords, B&Q and Texas Homecare.
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. 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.
Merry Hill had the first free-standing Pizza Hut in the UK, one of the first drive-thru McDonald's restaurants in the UK and the largest Texas Homecare store – all of them opened during 1986.
A Carrefour hypermarket 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, they already had a store in Brierley Hill town centre as well as several others in the wider Black Country area but the Brierley Hill store remained open. 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 owing to disappointing trade and was subdivided into additional retail units.
Construction of the final phase of the centre was completed in 1989. 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, C&A and Littlewoods stores also opened around this time. This part of the shopping centre was partly remodelled in 1996.
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. However, some retailers kept their stores in nearby towns open, despite opening new stores at Merry Hill.
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, expanding into a former Woolworths store on the upper level. The Littlewoods store was taken over by Marks & Spencer in the late 1990s and converted into a furniture and menswear store, and cafe.
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". Merry Hill was found to have had only a limited impact on the larger centres of Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Walsall. 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.
The 1993 impact study found that Merry Hill employed some 3,370 people of whom 80 per cent were women. 69 per cent of the jobs were part-time.
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 and by late 1990 the Richardsons had sold their interest in the shopping centre to Mountleigh.
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 owing to what were later, unfounded land contamination issues. In May 1992, it was announced that receivers were to be appointed by Mountleigh's bankers and in February 1993 Merry Hill was sold to Elliott Bernerd's London property company, Chelsfield and an undisclosed international partner. Chelsfield had assumed full ownership of the shopping centre by June 1996.
Access to the complex was improved in 1998 by alterations to the two junctions with the A4036 Dudley – Pedmore Road. More than 40 houses were demolished to make way for the widened road and re-designed Quarry Bank junction.
2000s–2010s 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. 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 2008, Merry Hill Centre, alongside nearby Brierley Hill, was redesignated as the 'strategic town centre' of the Dudley Borough, and thus the focus of future local government investment. Eat Central was opened on 22 October 2009, by TV chef James Martin at the cost of £24 million. The food court reused the Eat Central branding from Westfield Derby (Derbion), which opened two years earlier, despite that centre losing the Eat Central branding in 2017.
A further blow came when the local council, Dudley Metropolitan Borough, announced that it was bringing in parking charges throughout the area in 2011; 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 owing to fears of impacting trade.
Intu Properties purchased Westfield's 50 per cent in March 2014 and became full owners in June 2016 after buying out Queensland Investment Corporation's stake, the centre was renamed to Intu Merry Hill. In June 2020, Intu became Merry Hill's second owner to enter administration, 28 years after Mountleigh.
In 2018, a new 75,000 sq ft flagship Next store opened replacing the Sainsbury's store that closed on 31 December 2016.
2020s In June 2020, Intu became Merry Hill's second owner to enter administration, 28 years after Mountleigh, the ownership of the centre passed to a group of banks who were creditors of the centre and who appointed managers to run the centre, the centre was reverted to its old name.
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 stage, there are plans to divide the centre into new districts focusing on entertainment, fashion, and health and wellbeing among others. Early concept art shows the new area containing a new Odeon cinema and the expansion linking into the existing Eat Central area. Alongside this, there are plans to improve connections to The Waterfront and wider surrounding areas.
Changes include most of the outside of the centre' wall tiles being replaced by more colourful ones, reworked entrances and a new brand identity. The centre also got a new leisure quarter which consists of Hollywood Bowl and many restaurants.