Merry Hill Shopping Centre and local council leaders have stated their aim to better connect and integrate Merry Hill with the traditional town centre of Brierley Hill. The Dudley Canal was re-routed in the late-1990s, and between 2002-2005, housing has been developed around the complex (several apartment blocks opposite the cinema as well as apartments and houses overlooking Pedmore Road). A new line of the West Midlands Metro tram system was scheduled to reach the site in 2011, but has been delayed indefinitely. In July 2017, plans were revealed to expand the centre to include more restaurants and to open a new Odeon cinema
The Belfry (shopping centre) single large store. In March 2017 it was confirmed that the newly-configured store would be occupied by H&M from that spring. Housed on Car Park level one, above Marks & Spencer, the Royal Earlswood Museum is a small collection of some of the very few exhibits from the Royal Earlswood Asylum which was opened in 1847 and closed in 1997. Earlswood is a small town just up the hill from Redhill, and is far closer to the actual hill considered to be the original red hill than the town Redhill itself. The Belfry (shopping centre) The Belfry is a shopping