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
Box Hill Central Shopping Centre demolition of all tenancies with the shopping centre, reconfigure of the main shopping mall & car parks as well as major refurbishment of the external as well as the internal facades by Centro Properties Group it was reopened on 1 July 2003 as Centro Whitehorse (although called Whitehorse City while under redevelopment), the shopping centre has had incremental expansions over time since then. In 2007 Centro Whitehorse was re branded as Centro Box Hill North and expanded to include a brand new Harris Scarfe store, now the flagship store in Victoria. In 2013 it was rebranded to "Box Hill Central