Merry Hill Shopping Centre store by well over a decade, only closing when the retailer went into liquidation over the 2008/09 winter. The completion of Merry Hill resulted in the loss of many big name retailers from nearby town centres, with Dudley arguably being the hardest hit, suffering a 70% decline in retailing market share following Merry Hill's opening. However, some retailers kept their stores in nearby towns open, despite opening new stores at Merry Hill. WH Smith, who have been at Merry Hill since 1989, still have a store in Halesowen, and even opened a new store in Stourbridge during the 1990s. The
Travel Merry Hill Travel Merry Hill Travel Merry Hill was a bus operator in the West Midlands. It was a subsidiary of National Express. In 1988, the Merry Hill Minibus company was formed by the former owners of the Merry Hill Centre, Richardson Developments. Originally launched to compete with West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive's Mini Buzz service, at that time the Merry Hill Minibuses were the major form of public transport linking the surrounding areas with the shopping centre, of which approximately half had been opened by the time the service was launched (the first retailers had moved to the centre in 1985