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
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