Marks & Spencer Newcastle upon Tyne. M&S has opened a number of stores at out of town locations since the trend to build shopping centres away from town centres became popular in the 1980s. The first was at the MetroCentre, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, which opened in 1986. Another notable example is the store at the Merry Hill Shopping Centre at Brierley Hill, West Midlands. This store opened on 23 October 1990 shortly after the closure of stores in the nearby town centres of Dudley and West Bromwich; the Merry Hill store was not originally intended to replace these two town centre stores,
Merry Hill Shopping Centre and The Waterfront car parks. This service utilised two Travel Merry Hill owned MCW Metrobuses. The centre has around 210 stores and over 10,000 free car parking spaces, with a total retail floorspace of 154,002m² (1.593m ft²), making the centre the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, behind the MetroCentre, Bluewater, Trafford Centre and Westfield Stratford City. Merry Hill is home to anchor stores Debenhams, Marks and Spencer, Primark and Asda. Beyond the main shopping centre is a separate retail park which has a number of shops and restaurants and also a cinema. Stores in this area include Next Home,