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
Westfield Parramatta expanded the Parramatta town centre south of the railway line. That original Grace Bros. store was later incorporated into the first stage development of the new Westfield Parramatta, opening in 1975 as the largest shopping centre in Australia at the time. Later stage redevelopments of the sites now occupied by the current Westfield Parramatta involved archaeological digs which uncovered artifacts dating back to the earliest days of Colonial settlement, reflecting Parramatta's history as the second oldest settlement in Australia. The first redevelopment of Westfield Parramatta took place between 1988 and 1989. This was followed by a large scale expansion of