Merry Hill Shopping Centre closing 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 been plans for introducing parking charges at the centre, this has been criticised, ironically, due to fears of impacting trade. 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. The Merry
Chartwell Shopping Centre in place. The grand opening of the refurbished Westfield was scheduled for Thursday, 7 December 2006, but the opening of the Skycity Cinema was delayed until Thursday, 17 May 2007. In January 2010 Westfield Chartwell committed NZ$33million towards another upgrade, which was completed in October of the same year. This expansion included a new two level Farmers department store and the opening of several new stores. In November 2015, Stride Property announced they would be purchasing the Chartwell Shopping Centre from Scentre Group. It had agreed to pay $445 million for the Westfield Queensgate shopping centre in Lower Hutt and